Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Blandford Forum Extension) Bill,

Read the Third time, and passed.

Edinburgh Corporation Order Confirmation Bill,

Considered; to be read the Third time To-morrow.

DEATH PENALTY.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I beg to ask leave to present to this honourable House a petition signed by 88,594 British subjects, and bearing the seals of various local bodies which have adopted the petition corporately, praying that the death penalty be abolished by law.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE BOARDS.

Mr. DAY: 1.
asked the Minister of Labour the number of trade boards that are in operation at the present time; and whether any have been set up during the previous 18 months?

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Miss Bondfield): Forty-five Trade Boards are in operation. One of these, namely that for the keg and drum trade, was set up during the last 18 months.

Mr. DAY: Are there any further trade boards in contemplation?

Miss BONDFIELD: I am continuing inquiries into the possibility of setting up catering trade boards.

Oral Answers to Questions — DOMESTIC SERVICE.

Mr. MANDER: 2.
asked the Minister of Labour if the Government is prepared to
consider the appointment of a committee to inquire into the conditions of domestic service, with a view to making recommendations for improving its status and rendering it generally more attractive?

Miss BONDFIELD: There is a report on this subject, of which I am sending the hon. Member a copy, by a committee appointed in 1923. I do not think there would be any advantage in appointing another committee at the present time.

Mr. MANDER: Is the right hon. Lady prepared to reconsider the matter if she is satisfied that public opinion is taking a very deep interest in it?

Miss BONDFIELD: I will certainly consider any suggestion of that kind.

Mr. SANDERS: Is there not sufficient evidence to show that, where hours are reasonable, wages fair and conditions good, there is no difficulty in getting domestic servants?

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

UNSTAMPED CARDS (PROSECUTIONS).

Mr. TINKER: 3.
asked the Minister of Labour if she is aware that recently there have been a number of prosecutions against employers for not affixing stamps in respect of unemployment contributions; and will she state what is the position of those persons whose contributions have not been paid should they have to apply for unemployment benefits?

Miss BONDFIELD: The latest figures I have are for the quarter ending last December, during which there were 230 such prosecutions. This number was rather below the average for 1929. The result of the non-payment of contributions is that a claim to unemployment benefit by an insured contributor may be delayed, or, in exceptional cases, that benefit cannot be paid at all.

INSURANCE FUND (LOAN INTEREST).

Mr. KINLEY: 6.
asked the Minister of Labour the total amount of interest paid on money borrowed by the Unemployment Insurance Fund since its inception?

Miss BONDFIELD: The total amount of interest paid on money borrowed by
the Unemployment Fund since its inception till 30th September, 1929, is approximately £6,740,540. An additional half-year's interest, which it is estimated will amount to approximately £915,000, will be due for payment on 31st March, 1930.

BENEFIT.

Mr. TINKER: 10.
asked the Minister of Labour the number of cases of those who were struck off unemployment benefit under the term "not genuinely seeking work" who have applied to have their cases reconsidered under the amended Act of 1930; and is she in a position to say how many have been allowed for benefit?

Miss BONDFIELD: The number of such applications made by persons who had maintained registration was probably about 10,000. There is no means of telling how many other such applications were made, nor can I say in how many cases benefit was allowed.

Mr. TINKER: If I put a question down in a week or a fortnight, will the right hon. Lady be able to answer?

Miss BONDFIELD: I am not sure that I shall. The working of the new Act may take some time.

STATISTICS.

Sir ARTHUR STEEL-MAITLAND: 14.
asked the Minister of Labour what number, if any, of the figures of persons on the live register published on 26th March, 1930, is due, or estimated to be due, to changes in the law or administration of unemployment insurance since 1st June, 1929?

Miss BONDFIELD: It is estimated that the total on the registers of Employment Exchanges in Great Britain at 17th March, 1930, included between 40,000 and 50,000 persons brought on to the register as the result of legislative and administrative changes which have become operative since 1st June, 1929.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Can the right hon. Lady give us some idea of the basis on which that calculation is made?

Miss BONDFIELD: Yes, to this extent: I have calculated that legislative
changes account for 35,000 to 40,000 and administrative changes from 5,000 to 10,000. These are largely due to the operations of the board of assesors.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Will the figures that are caused either by legislative or administrative changes form a deduction from the number of people previously recorded as being on the two-months file?

Miss BONDFIELD: Those that were not registered will not be on the two months file. They will he separately assessed.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The right hon. Lady has misunderstood me. There are always recorded at the end of the month a number of persons, generally from 70,000 to 90,000, on the two-months file whose names do not come on the live register. Will any of those 50,000 consist of people who would otherwise have been upon the two-months file, but who now come on the live register?

Miss BONDFIELD: Yes; I calculate 35,000 to 40,000.

Mr. ERNEST BROWN: Can the right hon. Lady say whether all these persons are entitled to benefit, or not?

Miss BONDFIELD: No; it is not possible until the court of referees have heard the cases.

EXCHANGE ACCOMMODATION, LIVERPOOL.

Mr. HALL-CAINE: 15.
asked the Minister of Labour whether she is aware of the necessity for a new Employment Exchange in the Everton district of Liverpool, which would be more accessible to the people residing in the north end of the city than the present Exchange in Royal Street; and if any steps are being taken to acquire a site suitable for such a building?

Miss BONDFIELD: I am aware of the necessity for a new Employment Exchange in the north end of Liverpool, and steps are being taken to acquire a suitable site.

Mr. HALL-CAINE: Will the right hon. Lady hasten those steps so that we may have a site at the earliest moment?

Miss BONDFIELD: It is my constant endeavour to hasten those steps.

WASHINGTON HOURS CON VENTION.

Mr. MANDER: 9.
asked the Minister of Labour to what extent the legislation passed by other countries with reference to the Washington Eight Hours Convention is dependent as to its coming into force on similar action being taken in this country?

Miss BONDFIELD: The following countries have ratified the Convention, but on condition that their ratification does not become operative until the Convention has been ratified by other countries, of which Great Britain is one: Austria, France, Italy, Latvia, Spain.

Mr. MANDER: Does not that show the urgent importance of passing a Measure through the House? Can the right hon. Lady give any undertaking as to when it is going to be introduced?

Miss BONDFIELD: I agree that it does, and I hope I shall be able to introduce a Bill before very long.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Is it the right hon. Lady's policy, as before, to ratify without reservation?

Miss BONDFIELD: I think the right hon. Baronet had better wait for the Bill.

TRANSPORT (REAR LIGHTS AND REFLECTORS).

Mr. DAY: 16.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can state the number of persons prosecuted, during the 12 months ended to the last convenient date, under the Road Transport Lighting Act, 1927, for not being provided, between the hours of darkness, with a red rear light or, alternatively, an efficient red reflector?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Clynes): Figures are not available for the whole country, but in the Metropolitan Police District the number of prosecutions taken during the 12 months ended 31st Decem-
ber, 1929, in respect of failure to provide a red rear light or an efficient red reflector during hours of darkness, was 4,935.

Mr. DAY: Can my right hon. Friend obtain the figures for the provinces, because this is a much greater offence on dark roads?

Mr. CLYNES: My reply stated that the figures are not available, but I will inquire further.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC HEALTH.

POISONS AND PHARMACY ACTS.

Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: 18.
asked the Home Secretary whether he can make a statement as to the Government's intentions concerning the Report of the Departmental Committee on the Poisons and Pharmacy Acts?

Mr. CLYNES: The Government recognise the importance of this Report, and will take it into consideration as soon as possible, but there is no prospect of their introducing comprehensive legislation which would be required to give effect to the Committee's recommendations this Session.

HOSPITALS (PHARMACISTS AND DISPENSERS).

Mr. PHILIP OLIVER: 61.
asked the Minister of Health whether he will consider the addition of pharmacists and dispensers to the list of persons to be appointed to hospitals by a county or county borough council under Article 144. paragraph (e) of the draft order of 31st January, 1930?

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Mr. Arthur Greenwood): I would refer to the answer which I gave on the 20th March to the hon. and learned Member for Norwood (Sir W. Greaves-Lord).

Mr. OLIVER: Is it not the fact that in the great voluntary hospitals the principal dispensers are appointed by the board of governors? In that case, why does the right hon. Gentleman refuse to give the same status to this profession in the public hospitals?

Mr. GREENWOOD: I understand that this question is to be raised on the Adjournment, and I shall be glad to argue the matter then.

MARGARINE (IMPORTED OILS).

Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: 64.
asked the Minister of Health if imports of oleo oil and oleo stearine used in margarine must be accompanied by a certificate that the fat was derived from animals free from disease?

Mr. GREENWOOD: It is not the practice at English ports to require such a certificate.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Why is it that this is necessary in Scotland and is not necessary in England?

Mr. GREENWOOD: It is quite true that there is a difference in administration, and this is now under consideration between my Department and the Scottish Office.

Mr. WILLIAMS: When will the right hon. Gentleman do something?

Mr. GREENWOOD: When we have finished the consideration which is now taking place.

Mr. REMER: Is it not the case that in an answer given to a question by the Secretary of State for Scotland two or three days ago he said that he was making representations to the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. GREENWOOD: That is exactly what I have already said.

MENTAL TREATMENT.

Mr. KINLEY: 66.
asked the Minister of Health the total number of certified patients received into institutions under the jurisdiction of the Board of Control during each of the past 10 years, and the number discharged during each of the same years?

Mr. GREENWOOD: As the answer involves a number of statistics I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. KINLEY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether, in addition to the numbers who are received, any record is kept of those who are examined and not certified?

Mr. GREENWOOD: I cannot say without notice, but I can give the hon. Member all the particulars about admissions and discharges.

Following is the answer:

The following are the figures in regard to certified patients received into institutions under the Lunacy Acts:


Year.


Admission (excluding Transfers).
Discharges (excluding Transfers).


1920
…
…
22,325
10,505


1921
…
…
22,709
10,925


1922 
…
; …
23,087
11,024


1923 
…
…
23,012
10,768


1924
…
…
21,251
11,499


1925
…
…
21,751
10,934


1926
…
…
21,900
10,731


1927
…
…
21,878
10,709


1928
…
…
22,352
10,649


1929
…
…
22,024
10,736

The Board have no similar figures in regard to patients received into institutions under the Mental Deficiency Acts.

Mr. KINLEY: 67.
asked the Minister of Health the average annual number of certified patients discharged as cured from institutions under the jurisdiction of the Board of Control?

Mr. GREENWOOD: The average annual number of certified patients discharged as "recovered" from institutions under the Lunacy Acts during the years 1920–1929 was 7,119. Similar figures are not available in regard to institutions under the Mental Deficiency Act; because, although a certain number of patients are discharged after trial and for other reasons, they cannot be discharged as "recovered," having regard to the nature of their infirmity.

VACCINATION.

Mr. FREEMAN: 72.
asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to a circular letter sent by the medical officer of health for Bethnal Green to medical practitioners in Bethnal Green, dated 17th March, asking them when notifying cases of chicken-pox to indicate whether the patient has been vaccinated or not; whether his Department has suggested the sending of such a circular; whether a similar circular has been issued by any other medical officer of health; whether he is aware that vaccinated cases of chicken-pox are automatically diagnosed as chicken-pox while unvaccinated cases of chicken-pox may be rediagnosed as small-pox; and whether he will see that cases of small-pox
are diagnosed entirely on the symptoms and not on the presence or absence of vaccination marks?

Mr. GREENWOOD: I have seen the circular letter in question and understand that it was issued by the medical officer of health in order to facilitate his inquiries into the prevalence of smallpox in the Borough. My Department have not suggested the issue of such a circular and I have no information of the extent to which other medical officers have taken the same course. The answer to the fourth part of the question is in the negative. As regard the last part, the diagnosis of smallpox, as of other diseases, is a matter for the medical practitioner in attendance and I have no authority to give any directions on the subject.

DAIRY CATTLE (SHOWS).

Mr. RAMSBOTHAM: 74.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has received any protests from agricultural societies regarding the order he recently issued, prohibiting the exhibition at agricultural shows of animals from tuberculin-tested herds; and, if so, whether, in view of the hardship caused by the imposition of this order, he will reconsider the advisability of introducing it?

Mr. GREENWOOD: Yes, Sir. I have been informed that some of the bodies responsible for the organisation of agricultural shows are now prepared to arrange for the segregation of animals belonging to licensed tuberculin-tested herds, and I have promised to see their representatives with a view to considering the withdrawal of the prohibition in the case of shows where effective provision is made for this purpose.

REGIONAL WATER COMMITTEES.

Mr. LOVAT-FRASER: 75.
asked the Minister of Health how many regional water committees have been formed in response to the suggestion of the Ministry?

Mr. GREENWOOD: Up to the present five regional water committees have been set up. They are South West Lancashire (22 authorities), Sherwood Area of Nottinghamshire (24 authorities), Isle of Wight (10 authorities), Holland, Lincolnshire (12 authorities), and South Yorkshire (17 authorities).

ALIENS.

Mr. C. WILLIAMS: 20.
asked the Home Secretary what steps he proposes to take to deal with those aliens in this country who have no permits and are of unknown nationality?

Mr. CLYNES: If I am right in understanding the hon. Member to refer to the disposal of undesirable aliens whose nationality cannot be established, I would draw attention to my answer on 13th March to the hon. Member for Gravesend, of which I am sending him a copy.

Mr. WILLIAMS: The right hon. Gentleman did not know what he was going to do. Has he not yet made up his mind what he is going to do?

Mr. CLYNES: In any case, we must have the requisite information, and it is not always easy to get it.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Did not the right hon. Gentleman give us the information that he had on that occasion, and will he take no steps to-day?

Mr. CLYNES: If on that occasion I gave the requisite information, there is no need to repeat the question.

PERFORMING AND CAPTIVE ANIMALS (ACCIDENTS).

Mr. FREEMAN: 22.
asked the Home Secretary whether he can state the number of accidents, fatal and non-fatal, which have been caused in this country by performing and captive animals in circuses, music halls, and travelling menageries during each of the last five years?

Mr. CLYNES: I am afraid that this information is not available.

JOHN GIALDINI.

Sir K. WOOD: 23.
asked the Home Secretary whether he can now state the position of the proceedings against John Gialdini?

Mr. CLYNES: His Majesty's Government have been informed officially of the arrest of Gialdini. I cannot make any further statement while the matter remains sub judice.

Sir K. WOOD: Is there any possibility of any portion of the evidence being taken in London?

Mr. CLYNES: I could not say; it may be that some portion of it may be taken in London.

CHILDREN ACT.

Captain PETER MACDONALD: 24.
asked the Home Secretary whether it is his intention to introduce a measure amending the Criminal Law in relation to children and young persons; and, if so, whether the Bill will be brought in during the present Session of Parliament?

Mr. CLYNES: It is the intention of the Government, as I have stated in reply to previous questions, to introduce a Bill to amend the Children Act, 1908; but I regret that it is impossible in view of the pressure of Parliamentary business to take the Bill this Session.

COMMUNIST LEAFLETS (SOLDIERS).

Lieut.-Colonel Sir FREDERICK HALL: 25.
asked the Home Secretary whether the Government proposes to prosecute those responsible for the printing and publication of the Communist leaflets distributed to troops at Aldershot on 16th March in which the persecution by the Soviet authorities of religious organisations in Russia was justified, and soldiers were urged to disturb religious services convened to protest against the ill-treatment of persons on the ground of their religious beliefs?

Mr. CLYNES: I have had no communication in this matter either from the military authorities or from the police, and I think it may fairly be concluded that little importance is to be attached to the incident referred to.

Sir F. HALL: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider it of such little importance that pamphlets of this nature should be circulated among loyal troops in this country? Does he not think that it is advisable that he should communicate with the military authorities at Aldershot and find out whether it has had any detrimental effect, so as to stop this sort of thing?

Mr. CLYNES: In such a matter the Home Office would move on the approach
either of the military authorities or the police authorities, and we have had no sign from either.

Sir K. WOOD: Is it not a fact that the two men who distributed the leaflets were prosecuted? Why, therefore, should not the people who printed them be prosecuted also?

Mr. CLYNES: I can only say that the two main State Departments concerned—the police authorities and the military authorities—have taken no action, and the Home Office has no official information of it.

Sir F. HALL: Are the printers and publishers to go scot free, although the men who distributed them have been punished? That is the point.

Mr. CLYNES: That is the point which I have already answered, and it is useless to repeat it.

Mr. CHURCHILL: Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries as to the position occupied by the printers and publishers of these leaflets, for distributing which humbler men have been punished?

Mr. CLYNES: I imagine that the military authorities, who are most concerned in the first instance in this matter, will have that matter before their minds, but I am quite prepared independently to see what can be done.

STREET OFFENCES.

Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: 26.
asked the Home Secretary if it is the present intention of the Government to introduce legislation to give effect to the recommendations of the Street Offences Committee?

Mr. CLYNES: I regret I do not see my way at present to introduce legislation upon this subject.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDUSTRIAL DISEASES.

NYSTAGMUS (SUICIDES).

Mr. TINKER: 27.
asked the Rome Secretary the number of cases where men suffering from nystagmus have committed suicide and compensation has been paid to the dependent relatives under the Workmen's Compensation Act?

Mr. CLYNES: I regret I am not in a position to furnish this information. I may point out, however, that the returns show that the total number of fatal cases of miners' nystagmus in which compensation is recovered by the dependants is quite small. The average number of such cases over the five years 1924–28 was only 2.4.

Mr. TINKER: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the number of cases of nystagmus is increasing, and is he not taking any steps to investigate the cause?

Mr. CLYNES: I am not certain as to an increase, but I can assure my hon. Friend that the matter is constantly before the Department.

SILICOSIS.

Mr. HOPKIN: 29.
asked the Home Secretary if he has received a Resolution from the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Federation drawing his attention of the fact that it is impossible for the federation to establish any claim to compensation for the dependants of men who die from silicosis because it was not possible to prove the presence of 50 per cent. silica in the stone or rock where the mine was working; whether he is aware that similar conditions obtain in the anthracite district in South Wales where a number of men have died from silicosis for whose dependants no compensation can be obtained because it is impossible to prove the presence of 50 per cent. of silica in the rock in the mine; and whether he proposes to amend the law to meet this situation?

Mr. CLYNES: The answer to the first two parts of the question is in the negative. No cases of hardship due to the limitation referred to by my hon. Friend have yet been brought to my notice, but if any evidence is submitted, I shall be glad to consider it.

Mr. HOPKIN: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there has not been a single case brought from the anthracite district of South Wales which has been successful owing to the fact that it is impossible to prove that there is 50 per cent. silica in the rock?

Mr. TINKER: Has my right hon. Friend had any representation from the Miners' Federation of Great Britain that, in fact, it is impossible for a miner to
get compensation under the present regulations?

Mr. CLYNES: Yes, representations have been made in this matter but, as I have said, if information can be afforded on the specific cases, I shall be glad to receive it and to deal with it.

Mr. HOPKIN: May I give notice that I shall raise this question on the Adjournment at an early date.

JUVENILE OFFENDERS (BICYCLISTS).

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: 28.
asked the Home Secretary whether he has taken any steps to bring to the notice of the courts concerned the many cases of youths and young persons still being sent to prison for trivial offences such as riding bicycles without lamps?

Mr. CLYNES: I have already publicly drawn general attention to the matter.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied as to the result of his remonstrances, and is he aware that recently boys have been sent to prison for riding bicycles without lamps and offences of that kind?

Mr. CLYNES: It is only within the past few weeks that I have twice referred to this matter, and, of course, as yet, there has been no time to see the results.

CRIME STATISTICS (MENTAL DEFECTIVES).

Mr. CECIL WILSON: 31.
asked the Home Secretary how many persons committed for trial in England and Wales during the 10 years prior to 1929 on the charge of murder have, before conviction or after conviction, respectively, been certified as mental defectives under the Mental Deficiency Acts?

Mr. CLYNES: I am afraid I am not in a position to give the figures asked for since cases of persons committed for trial certified mentally deficient and acquitted would not necessarily come to the knowledge of my Department, and as regards persons certified after conviction, the statistics do not distinguish between those serving commuted death sentences and other prisoners.

POLICE (CORRUPT PRACTICES).

Dr. MORRIS-JONES: 33.
asked the Home Secretary whether he will introduce legislation to prevent the retention by a police officer convicted of corrupt practices of money accumulated as the result of such conduct?

Mr. CLYNES: Not as at present advised.

Dr. MORRIS-JONES: Would it be correct to say at this moment that an ex-sergeant of the Metropolitan Police is enjoying the blessings of liberty and is in possession of a comfortable fortune as a result of these dishonest practices?

Mr. CLYNES: If my hon. Friend knows that it is correct to make such a statement, I shall be glad to have information with regard to it.

Dr. MORRIS-JONES: Would the right hon. Gentleman, in the interests of the welfare of this very fine force, show to them and to the public that it is in the power of the Government to prevent the repetition of such glaring instances of the prosperity of the wicked?

Mr. CLYNES: I deprecate these reflections by implication on the force in general by introducing some half-concealed allusion to a particular case.

BOOT INDUSTRY (LABOUR CONDITIONS).

Mr. L'ESTRANGE MALONE: 34.
asked the Home Secretary whether he has received a copy of the Report on the conditions of employment in the boot industry in the East End of London, prepared by Dr. A. D. Denning for the Boot Manufacturers' Federation and the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives, in which the conditions of sweating are described as inhumane; and what action he proposes to take?

Mr. CLYNES: I have not seen this Report, but I gather from the notice of it, which appeared in the Press that it is at present being considered by a joint conference representing the manufacturers' and operatives' associations, who will, no doubt, confer with the Department or Departments concerned.

Mr. MALONE: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the serious effect of these conditions on the workers in the East End, and that it is also operating in other towns under good conditions, and will he take action under the Factory Act as soon as possible?

Mr. CLYNES: I can only repeat that so far information comes from the Press, and I have seen no official or authoritative Report.

Mr. MALONE: If the facts are as stated, does it not indicate that the factory inspectors are not doing their work properly?

Mr. CLYNES: I think that one ought not to pre-judge the facts by assuming that they are not.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION.

MAINTENANCE ALLOWANCES.

Mr. LOVAT-FRASER: 35.
asked the President of the Board of Education why no women were appointed to serve on the committee which is advising him with regard to maintenance grants for school children at 14 years of age?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Sir Charles Trevelyan): The members of the committee which is advising me in regard to maintenance allowances were not selected by me but by the local education authorities, whom I asked to help me because of their long experience of the administration of maintenance allowances for children attending secondary and central schools.

Mr. HARRIS: Has not the right hon. Gentleman the power, if he desires, to appoint a woman on the committee?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: No, I have asked the bodies representative of the local education authorities to help me by appointing their own members.

Mr. HARRIS: Is not the right hon. Gentleman supreme in the matter?

Mr. FREEMAN: Would my right hon. Friend consider making a representation to the local authorities?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: No, I think the local authorities ought, to be allowed to appoint their own representatives.

Dr. VERNON DAVIES: 47.
asked the President of the Board of Education the estimated cost of the committee which is assisting him on the question of maintenance grants for school children at 14 years of age; and does he propose to issue a Supplementary Estimate for the amount?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: The committee which is advising me in regard to maintenance allowances does not involve any additional expenditure from public funds.

Dr. DAVIES: Are we to understand that these gentlemen are paying their own expenses for attending this committee?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I really do not know.

Mr. BEAUMONT: Will the right hon. Gentleman find out?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: It is not my business to ask local authorities how, if they do, they are paying members for attending this committee.

SCHOOL TUCK SHOP.

Mr. WOMERSLEY: 36.
asked the President of the Board of Education if he has received a resolution from the Grimsby and District Chamber of Trade protesting against rate-aided and State-aided departments being used for the purpose of trading in any form whatsoever, and requesting him to issue instructions to all State-aided teaching staffs to cease immediately from any trading with their scholars; and what action he will take?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I have received a resolution from the Grimsby and District Chamber of Trade in regard to a school tuck shop. The matter is primarily the concern of the local education authorities, and I do not see any reason for action on my part.

Mr. BLINDELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman make suitable suggestions to the local authorities that this trading in the schools should be stopped permanently?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: No, I think that the local authorities are the best judges of where the children should get food.

Mr. WOMERSLEY: It is not a question of food at all, but of the sale of other things, and, in view of that fact,
will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries into the matter to see if something cannot be done to stop the practice?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I would suggest to the hon. Member that he should make inquiries as to the schools in his own locality, and probably a good many of his friends would be able to stop it there.

CHILDREN IN CANAL BOATS.

Mr. BEAUMONT: 37.
asked the President of the Board of Education if any special steps have ever been taken to enforce Section 50 of the Education Act, 1921?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: For more than 40 years it has been the statutory duty of the Board to report annually to Parliament in regard to the attendance at school of children in canal boats. These reports show the efforts that have been made, both by the local authorities and by inspectors, and they also draw attention to the difficulties with which they have been faced in their endeavours to secure the enforcement of the law.

Mr. BEAUMONT: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the local authorities have taken every possible step to carry out this section?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I have no reason to think that they have not.

Dr. DAVIES: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the report should be made to the President of the Board of Education or to the Minister of Health?

DOMESTIC SCIENCE CENTRES.

Dr. MARION PHILLIPS: 38.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether he will consider the advisability of requiring, as a condition of grant, the installation of electric cooking, lighting and cleaning apparatus in all domestic science teaching centres,, as and when current becomes available, in order that pupils may gain experience in household management on the most scientific lines as well as with the old-fashioned unhygienic and labour-making apparatus now common in the houses of many areas?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I am not prepared to require, as a condition of grant, that electrical apparatus should be installed in premises to be used for the teaching of domestic science,
wherever current is available, as I consider that this is a matter on which the decision should be taken by the local education authorities, who are familiar with the local conditions in each case. I may mention, however, that electrical apparatus is available at all the domestic training colleges, and that the Board are including a course on the subject of its use among the short courses for teachers which are to be held this summer.

Dr. PHILLIPS: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is very important to encourage in the domestic science centres the very best methods of housekeeping, cooking and cleaning, and that, if he encouraged local authorities in every possible way to have such apparatus, it would help materially in forwarding that principle?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a matter of opinion.

MILK SUPPLIES.

Dr. MARION PHILLIPS: 39.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that recent investigations in England and Scotland have proved the great value of milk in the diet of children; and whether he can say to what extent comprehensive schemes for the supply of milk to school children are in operation in England and Wales?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. With regard to the second part, I am glad to he able to say that an increasing number of children receive milk at school, either under schemes organised by the teachers through the National Milk Publicity Council, or under arrangements made by the local education authority. In Birmingham, for instance, over 3,250,000 bottles of milk were supplied to school children in 1928, representing a daily average of over 15,000 children. In Leeds more than half the school children receive milk under the exceptionally extensive arrangements made by the local education authority. I am having more detailed inquiries made, and when these are completed, I will communicate the results to my hon. Friend.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider introducing legislation on similar lines to the Bill now before the House in regard to Scotland?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I will wait until I have finished my inquiries.

Mr. SMITHERS: Will the right hon. Gentleman use any powers that he has, or will he advise the local authorities to use all their powers, to get tuberculin-tested and grade A milk for giving to these children?

Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of the question.

SECONDARY SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION, ESTON.

Mr. MANSFIELD: 40.
asked the President of the Board of Education if he has now received the Report of the North Riding Education Committee respecting the provision of a secondary school at Eston; and if he is now able to state what action he proposes to take in the matter?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I have received the programme of the North Riding Local Education Authority. It includes a proposal for the provision of a secondary school at Eston, but I am not yet able to give a decision on the matter.

DAY CONTINUATION SCHOOLS.

Mr. HARRIS: 41.
asked the President of the Board of Education what local authorities have organised day continuation schools; whether the Board has had any reports on the system of day continuation schools in Germany; and, if not, whether he will consider sending over one of the Board's inspectors to collect information on the working of the scheme there?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: The local education authorities for London and West Ham have organised provision for voluntary day continuation schools; the Warwickshire authority conduct one school at Rugby on the basis of compulsory attendance; and 14 other authorities conduct one or more such schools, mostly on the basis of co-operation with individual firms of employers. The Board has not prepared any report on the German day continuation schools, but they possess some information on these schools, and I
will bear the hon. Member's suggestion in mind should the occasion arise for a further inquiry on the subject.

Mr. HARRIS: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that these continuation schools are a success; and, if so, will he try to stimulate local authorities in other parts of the country to provide them?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I have no doubt that they are a success, but I think we are asking almost enough just now so far as the work of local authorities is concerned.

Mr. C. WILLIAMS: Have any of the right hon. Gentleman's inspectors been in the habit of going abroad to get information? Is is a common practice, and has the right hon. Gentleman sufficient powers to send them abroad?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: Yes, they go very frequently.

ATTENDANCE AT CINEMAS.

Mr. HARRIS: 42.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether he has had any reports made by the medical officer of the Board as to the effect on the child mind of constant attendance at cinemas; and, if not, whether he will cause an inquiry to be held and consult local education authorities thereon?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: No report has been made by the Board's medical officers as to the effect on the child mind of constant attendance at cinemas. I am afraid that I cannot undertake to initiate an inquiry of this kind at the present time; but I understand that some investigations are to be made by the London Local Education Authority, and I shall await the results with great interest.

Mr. HARRIS: Has the right hon. Gentleman any information of what has been done in this matter on the Continent, particularly in Germany? If not, will he collect the information?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: If my lion. Friend will send me any information that he has, I will make further inquiries.

Miss RATHBONE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the child welfare committee of the League of Nations at Geneva have had a committee sitting for the last three years, and that they have obtained considerable information?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I will take information from that source.

SCHOOL HOLIDAYS.

Mr. WOMERSLEY: 43.
asked the President of the Board of Education if he has received resolutions from local authorities requesting that there should be a rearrangement of the holidays of State-aided schools throughout the country in order to provide, say, three weeks at or about Whitsuntide and at least three weeks during August, with a view to assisting seaside and other holiday resorts by enabling people to take their holidays earlier and avoiding the present congestion in the first two weeks in August?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I have received such resolutions from the local authorities of some seaside resorts. Under the provisions of the Education Act the fixing of school holidays is a matter which lies within the discretion of the local education authorities.

Mr. WOMERSLEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman make representations to the local authorities on this matter, as it is of national importance rather than of local importance?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: The most important thing is that the parents and the local authority should decide when they want holidays.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Does the right hon. Gentleman not see that, if the education authorities of the schools do not fix the holidays, the parents cannot fix them? Could there be anything better than that the month of June should be used for this purpose?

Mr. SMITHERS: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that in certain parts of the country, where hop pickers and strawberry pickers are concerned, it is most important to have holidays at suitable times?

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE BILL.

Dr. DAVIES: 44.
asked the President of the Board of Education if he is prepared to indemnify any education authority who may enter into commitments on the assumption that the Education (School Attendance) Bill will be in operation on 1st April, 1931, if for any reason the Bill is not on the statute book on that date?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I am not prepared to indicate what course of action I should pursue in hypothetical and unlikely circumstances.

Dr. DAVIES: Will the right hon. Gentleman give the House any reason for his excessive optimism on this point?

CHILDREN IN EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES.

Dr. DAVIES: 46.
asked the President of the Board of Education how many education authorities have applied for permission to enforce Section 23 of the Education Act, 1921, during each of the years since 1921; and how many of these requests have been approved each year?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: No record is kept of proposals submitted to the Board under Section 23 of the Education Act, 1921, and not approved. Proposals under this Section subsequently approved by the Board have been submitted by the following numbers of authorities during the last eight years: 6; 6; nil; 1; 11; 8; 7; 6. Arrangements usually remain in force for several years without further approval by the Board.

Dr. DAVIES: Does the President of the Board of Education think local authorities are taking full advantage of the provisions of this Act; and can he take some steps to draw their attention to the powers they have in dealing with the case of these children?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I think that the local authorities know their powers.

Dr. DAVIES: I do not think that they do.

VACCINATION (DALSTON LANE SCHOOL).

Mr. FREEMAN: 48.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that children attending Sigden Street School, Dalston Lane, Hackney Downs, were vaccinated at school on or about 21st March last without the previous consent of their parents being obtained; and by whose authority were such vaccinations carried out?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I have made inquiries, and have not been able to ascertain that any children have been vaccinated recently at the Sigden Road School, either with or without the consent of their parents.

Mr. FREEMAN: Are we to understand that no child is to be vaccinated without the previous consent of their parents having been obtained in writing?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I do not think that is my business.

MENTAL DEFICIENCY COMMITTEE (RECOMMENDATIONS).

Miss LEE: 49.
asked the President of the Board of Education what action the Government proposes to take regarding the findings of the Report of the Mental Deficiency Committee issued in 1929?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: The recommendations of the Report of the Mental Deficiency Committee involve important legislative changes, which will need careful consideration and affect other Government Departments as well as the Board of Education. I am not yet in a position to indicate the attitude of the Government towards the Report.

EXPENDITURE, UNITED STATES.

Mr. MORLEY: 51.
asked the President of the Board of Education what is the total amount of money spent annually from public funds upon education in the United States of America?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I understand that the gross expenditure, including capital expenditure, on public educational institutions in the United States of America was about 2,315 million dollars in 1925–26, the latest year for which I have been able to obtain figures.

Mr. MORLEY: Do not these figures suggest the desirability of spending more money on education in this country?

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is not the President of the Board of Education aware that there are enormous endowments on education in the United States which accrue to the American Education Department?

MALE TEACHERS, LIVERPOOL.

Mr. HALL-CAINE: 52.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware of the scarcity of men teachers in Liverpool; and if he will take steps to see that an adequate simply of teachers is available to fill the places of those who will be leaving at the end of the present term?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I am not aware that there is any scarcity of men teachers in Liverpool. The responsibility for the staffing of the schools rests with the local education authority in the first instance; but I will make inquiries on the point raised by my hon. Friend and shall be glad to inform him as to the result.

IMPERIAL ECONOMIC CONFERENCE.

Sir NICHOLAS GRATTAN-DOYLE: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of the Government to place the subject of Empire economic unity on the agenda of the Imperial Economic Conference?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Philip Snowden): I am unable to make any statement regarding the economic agenda for the Imperial Conference which, as explained by the Prime Minister in his reply to the hon. Member for Willesden East (Mr. D. G. Somerville) on the 25th March, is now under discussion between the Governments.

Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLE: Will the right hon. Gentleman make representations to the Prime Minister, in view of the fact that an enormous amount of interest is taken in this question oversea as well as in this country, that this subject may be placed upon the agenda?

Mr. SNOWDEN: I do not very clearly understand what the hon. Member means by "economic unity," but, if he is thinking about the Empire Protectionist stunt, I can go so far as to say that he may be assured we shall not place that subject on the agenda.

Mr. CHURCHILL: Are there not good precedents for a very full statement being made by the Government to Parliament, well in advance of the meeting of the Imperial Conference, as to the scope and character of its work, and will not the right hon. Gentleman follow the precedents and let us know when we may expect a full statement from his Government?

Mr. SNOWDEN: It wants about five months before the Conference will meet, and surely the right hon. Gentleman is asking at a very early stage for a statement about the agenda of the Conference
to be made to Parliament. If he is correct in saying that there are precedents to this effect, then I am quite sure the Prime Minister will try and follow those precedents.

Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLE: May I call the right hon. Gentleman's attention—[HON. MEMBERS: "No"] May I ask the right hon. Gentleman how he interprets the word "stunt," which he used in his reply?

Mr. SPEAKER: It is quite impossible.

Mr. HARRIS: Did not the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) lock, bolt, and bar the door on this subject many years ago?

Oral Answers to Questions — POOR LAW.

TEST WORK.

Major GRAHAM POLE: 55.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that in the Shardlow Poor Law Institute casual poor are still set to breaking stones; and if he will represent to the board of guardians concerned the undesirability of continuing to impose this task on the casual poor under their charge?

Mr. GREENWOOD: So far as I am aware, the Shardlow Board of Guardians have not discontinued this task which they are empowered to require in suitable cases. It is one of several tasks which may be required of casuals under the provisions of the Casual Poor Relief Order, 1925, and as I have stated on previous occasions, I do not propose to consider the revision of this Order until I have received the report of the Committee which I appointed to consider the administration of the relief of the casual poor.

Sir K. WOOD: Does the right hon. Gentleman remember all that he has said about stone-breaking?

Mr. GREENWOOD: Yes, Sir, and I hope the right hon. Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) remembers all that he did about it.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Are we to understand that the right hon. Gentleman now approves of the task of stone-breaking?

Mr. GREENWOOD: No, Sir.

Mr. HAYCOCK: May I ask him whether he has any trouble at all with Labour councils, or whether it does not all come from Conservative and Tory councils?

Mr. C. WILLIAMS: 63.
asked the Minister of Health if the increased hours of test work imposed by the Hull Board of Guardians have been found to be advantageous; and, if so, will he proceed further with this experiment?

Mr. GREENWOOD: The advantage of the alteration in the scheme does not lie in the slight increase of hours, but in the fact that the arrangements have been made uniform. I am satisfied that the new scheme, which is still in operation, is an improvement on previous arrangements.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Are we to understand that there has been an increase of hours, and also that it has nothing to do with stone-breaking?

Mr. GREENWOOD: I am glad to notice the anxiety of the hon. Member for the city of Hull. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] I say that I am glad of it. There has been a slight increase in hours, but it has nothing to do with stone-breaking.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman approves of this increase of hours?

Mr. GREENWOOD: I have already said so twice in the House.

CASUALS.

Major POLE: 56.
asked the Minister of Health whether the Departmental Committee set up in September last to consider the administration of the laws relating to the relief of the casual poor has presented its report; and, if not, whether he can give any indication as to when this Committee is likely to complete its investigations?

Mr. GREENWOOD: The report referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend has not yet been received, but I understand that the Committee's investigations are almost completed.

EX-SERVICE MAN'S DEATH, LEEDS.

Mr. MILNER: 77.
asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the case of Patrick McHugh,
an ex-service man, late of 2, Silk Street, Leeds, who was refused relief by a committee of the Leeds Board of Guardians, with the result that he died of lack of food and warmth; and, if not, whether he will make inquiries and take any necessary action?

Mr. GREENWOOD: My attention has not been drawn to this case, but I will make inquiries.

NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE ACT.

Dr. MARION PHILLIPS: 60.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that, under the National Health Insurance Act, 1928, a number of persons have suffered a reduction of disablement benefit from 7s. 6d. to 3s. 9d.; and whether he will take steps to lessen this grievance?

Mr. GREENWOOD: I would refer my hon. Friend to the replies on the same subject given to the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) on the 11th instant.

RATING RELIEF (LEGAL COSTS).

Mr. SAWYER: 65.
asked the Minister of Health if he can state the amount expended by the local authorities in England and Wales upon legal costs in connection with the rate reliefs under the Local Government Act?

Mr. GREENWOOD: The information for which my hon. Friend asks is not available.

CONTRIBUTORY PENSIONS ACTS.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: 68.
asked the Minister of Health whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce legislation enabling shopkeepers and other persons engaged industrially or professionally on their own account to become voluntary contributors, so that they may enjoy the provisions of the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Acts?

Mr. GREENWOOD: This matter comes within the scope of the Cabinet Committee engaged on a general survey of the existing insurance and pensions legislation.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Can the right hon. Gentleman indicate when this committee is expected to report?

Mr. GREENWOOD: I have already informed the House that this committee will report from time to time to the Cabinet.

Sir K. WOOD: Does the right hon. Gentleman remember all that he said about this subject also?

Mr. C. WILLIAMS: Will the right hon. Gentleman be able to accelerate the work of this committee and get something done?

Sir K. WOOD: 71.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has now decided to introduce a Measure to grant pensions to all widows in need?

Mr. GREENWOOD: I may perhaps suitably remind the right hon. Gentleman of the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act, 1929, which came into force on 2nd January, 1930, and gave potential rights to widows' pensions to 500,000 widows.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Has the right hon. Gentleman forgotten that this Act did not give pensions to widows in need; and will he now take any steps to carry out the Prime Minister's pledge?

Mr. GREENWOOD: My answer to that is, that it gave pensions to nearly 500,000 widows who were in need.

Sir K. WOOD: Does the right hon. Gentleman's answer mean that, as far as these poor widows are concerned, it is a case of "Good-bye to all that"?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Are we to understand from the right hon. Gentleman's answer that that Act was the last word of the Government in the matter?

Mr. GREENWOOD: No, Sir.

Mr. HALL-CAINE: 76.
asked the Minister of Health the number of new pensioners who are receiving pensions under the last Widows', Orphans,' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act in Liverpool?

Mr. GREENWOOD: I regret that the information asked for is not available as the records of pensions are not arranged on a territorial basis.

FLOUR (MOISTURE CONTENT).

Captain P. MACDONALD: 69.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has received representations respecting the limitation of moisture content of flour sold for human consumption; and, if so, whether any reply has been sent, and of what nature?

Mr. GREENWOOD: I do not find that I have received any such representations.

LONDON SQUARES.

Sir KENYON VAUGHAN-MORGAN: 70.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is in a position to announce early action on the part of His Majesty's Government to give effect to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on London Squares?

Mr. GREENWOOD: I propose to introduce a Bill on this subject this Session, but I am not yet in a position to indicate a date.

PETROL AND OIL PRICES.

Mr. DAY: 78.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will take into consideration the ring for fixing prices of petrol and oil when he is framing his Budget for the forthcoming year, and consider whether provision can be made to ensure that no additional tax that may be imposed on oil products will be passed on to the consumer?

Mr. P. SNOWDEN: My hon. Friend may be assured that in framing my Budget I shall take all relevant matters into consideration.

Mr. E. BROWN: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if in considering this subject he will take notice of the special case of turpentine?

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Will the right hon. Gentleman also take into consideration the fact that the control of the oil supplies of the world is practically in the hands of the United States?

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Nonsense!

CHILDREN'S ALLOWANCES AND WORKERS' PENSIONS (COST).

Mr. SHEPHERD: 79.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can estimate what would be the net cost, if any, of giving maintenance grants of 5s. to the 400,000 school-leaving children, aged 14, and pensions of £1 additional to the present 10s. for the 340,000 workers, aged 65 and over, who are still in industry, after taking into account the saving on the unemployment benefit and Poor Law relief for those for whom vacancies would thus be created?

Mr. P. SNOWDEN: I am afraid that the figures quoted by the hon. Member would not provide a reliable basis for estimating the cost of pensions over 65. Further there are no data available on which it would be possible to estimate the savings to the Unemployment Fund and in Poor Law relief which the measures referred to in the question might produce. It is probable however that the saving under these heads would be relatively small, and it is practically certain that none of it would reach the Exchequer, which would have to bear the whole cost of the suggested pensions.

EMPIRE SUGAR (DUTY).

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: 81.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the estimated increased annual loss of revenue involved in the proposal in paragraph 53 of Lord Olivier's Commission on the West Indian sugar industry for increasing the rate of preference on Empire sugar imported into Great Britain from its present figure to the rate of preference at present given by Canada to British West Indian sugar?

Mr. P. SNOWDEN: The additional preference suggested in the recommendation referred to could not be confined to imported Empire sugar but would have to be extended to home-grown sugar. It is estimated that on that basis the cost to the Exchequer would approximate to £1⅓ million a year.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: When the Chancellor of the Exchequer says that it would have to be conceded to homegrown sugar, does not home-grown sugar already get a complete rebate of Duty?

Mr. SNOWDEN: There is the Excise, of course.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: How much does the Excise amount to, on the volume of £1,300,000?

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, unless something is done in this matter, the whole population in the Barbados will be out of work and starving?

Oral Answers to Questions — SAFEGUARDING AND IMPORT DUTIES.

LACE AND SILK.

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: 83.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the nature of the replies he has sent to the petitions he has received from the Tiverton and District Mercantile Association and from the employés in the Tiverton lace factories on the subject of the lace and silk duties?

Mr. P. SNOWDEN: I have received a copy of a resolution passed at a meeting of the Tiverton and District Mercantile Association on the subject of the silk and lace duties. The communication has been acknowledged. I am unable to trace the receipt of a petition from the employés in the Tiverton lace factories.

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this petition was signed by 800 or 900 of the employés; and is he further aware that these Duties have brought great prosperity to this industry and to the town, and that if they are done away with it will have a very serious effect; and will he give this matter his sympathetic consideration?

Mr. SNOWDEN: How in the world could I be aware of the number of persons who signed this petition when, as I have told the hon. and gallant Member, I have not received it, and can find no trace of it?

Mr. C. WILLIAMS: Will the right hon. Gentleman give it sympathetic consideration when he does find it?

Mr. BEAUMONT: Or will he continue to pursue this Free Trade stunt?

LOCAL AUTHORITIES (LOAN INTEREST).

Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: 85.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether, having regard to the fact that the yield on local loan stock at current price is, approximately, 4½ per cent., he will consider the possibility of relating the present rate of interest charged on loans from this fund more closely to the conditions of long-term borrowing?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence): The hon. Member can rest assured that this matter is under continuous consideration. Though it is obviously not practicable to follow the day to day fluctuations in the market price, the rates charged are in fact governed by the conditions of long-term borrowing. He will no doubt remember that I announced only last week a reduction of ¼per cent.

Mr. WHITE: Will the hon. Gentleman not review the statutory conditions to see if some greater flexibility cannot be introduced into them, so that small authorities who borrow from this fund may be able to avail themselves of the opportunities afforded on the money market, on the same terms as the larger corporations?

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I do not think that there is any failure of flexibility in these conditions. When the market rate went down a few days ago, I was able to announce a drop of ¼ per cent. in this rate, and, if and when the conditions change so that a further reduction becomes available, I shall make it without delay.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

IMPORTED PRODUCE.

Commander BELLAIRS: 86.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the warning of the Empire Marketing Board, in its weekly fruit and crop notes of 12th March, that exports of potatoes from Algeria should increase to a final total of 40,000 tons and to reports from abroad that, owing to the prohibition of Russian grain in the Netherlands, the cargoes are to be diverted to England; and whether he proposes to take any action to save British agriculture from this abnormal competition?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of AGRICULTURE (Dr. Addison): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The statement to which the hon. and gallant Member refers indicates the probable maximum export of potatoes from Algeria. There are no means of estimating what proportion of these will eventually reach this country since a large proportion are re-exported from France. The combined total quantity of potatoes registered as imported from Algeria and France during January and February (the latest figures available) was only about 550 tons. In reply to the last part of the question, my right hon. Friend has nothing to add to previous statements with regard to the importation of foodstuffs.

Captain P. MACDONALD: 87.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the prevailing conditions in the agricultural industry, the Government has taken into consideration the question of controlling imports of agricultural produce or of securing in some other way an economic price for the Home product?

Dr. ADDISON: Proposals of this nature have been considered by the Government, but my right hon. Friend is not in a position to make any statement on the matter at present.

Captain MACDONALD: Do I understand that the Government have no policy for dealing with the importation of foreign produce which is subsidised by other Governments?

Dr. ADDISON: I am quite unable to say what the hon. and gallant Member understands.

Mr. SMITHERS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are tons of potatoes in my constituency which are unsaleable because of these imports; and can he do nothing to protect the British farmer?

Dr. ADDISON: I think the hon. Gentleman is referring to the previous answer.

Earl WINTERTON: Has the right hon. Gentleman's attention been called to the fact that the Minister of Agriculture, in
reply to a question in December last, said that the Government had under consideration the question of a wheat import board for this country; and can he give any approximate date when a decision is likely to be reached?

Dr. ADDISON: I am afraid I cannot add anything to the reply.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Was there not an opportunity of raising this matter yesterday on the Consolidated Fund Bill?

FRUIT AND VEGETABLES (MARKETING).

Mr. MORLEY: 89.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he will take steps to protect the smallholder and fruit grower from unfair foreign competition and excessive distribution and commission costs by adopting a policy of collecting stations, stabilisation of prices, and municipal markets?

Dr. ADDISON: The National Mark scheme, which has already been extended to apples, pears, tomatoes and cucumbers, and will shortly, I hope, be extended to strawberries, cherries and, eventually, to other fruits and to vegetables, aims at securing the standardisation of product, pack and package and thereby of providing a basis for collective marketing where practicable. Proposals for facilitating the organisation for marketing purposes of fruit and vegetable growers are at present under consideration.

Mr. MORLEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the neighbourhood of Southampton last year, strawberry growers were receiving 3d. a pound for best fruit, while fruit of an inferior quality was being retailed at 1s.; similarly, for other fruit and vegetable products, the producers are receiving less than 25 per cent. of the retail price; and will he include fruit and vegetable products under the protection of Import Boards, as well as as arable farming?

Mr. BLINDELL: Seeing that nine months of this Parliament have expired, can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House that at no distant date the Board of Agriculture will be prepared to convey to us the steps they propose to take for facilitating the marketing of agricultural produce?

Dr. ADDISON: I hope that it will be possible at no distant date. With reference to the other supplementary question, I am aware of the discrepancy between the producers' and consumers' prices, and it is that matter which we are examining with a view to trying to provide proper organisation in the industry.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

BRITISH INDUSTRIES FAIR (WATCHES AND CLOCKS).

Mr. REMER: 92.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department why Clause 2 (b) of the conditions for exhibitors at the British Industries Fair, providing that anything exhibited must be manufactured or produced mainly within the British Empire, was withdrawn by his Department on 4th December last; is he aware that the effect of this withdrawal is that German clocks and barometer movements can be placed in English-made cases and exhibited as specimens of British industry; and will he make a statement of the policy of his Department on this matter?

Mr. GILLETT (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): Clause 2 (b) of the General Regulations for exhibitors, which requires that all goods to be eligible must have been manufactured mainly within the British Empire, has not been withdrawn. A special restriction in that clause applicable only to watches and clocks was withdrawn in deference to representations of the trade associations concerned. In such matters it is the policy of the Department to give every consideration to such representations.

Mr. REMER: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that most important manufacturers of clocks in this country withheld their exhibits from the British Industries Fair on the ground that this was not an exhibition of British clocks, but of foreign clocks?

Mr. GILLETT: We had a request from three associations representing the trades concerned to withdraw the restriction, and we acted on their request.

Mr. REMER: Were these representatives of foreign manufacturers?

GRANITE (IMPORTS).

Mr. McKINLAY: 90.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the value and weight, if possible, of finished granite imported into this country from Germany and Czechoslovakia, respectively, in each year during the period 1924 to 1929?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. W. R. Smith): As regards monumental and architectural granite, I will, with my hon.

Year.
Total Imports into Great Britain and Northern Ireland registered as consigned from


Germany.
Czechoslovakia.


Quantities.
Declared values.
Quantities.
Declared Values.







Tons.
£
Tons.
£


1924
…
…
…
…
2,326
63,897
255
7,534


1925
…
…
…
…
2,163
65,867
600
18,586


1926
…
…
…
…
2,047
69,134
1,265
41,158


1927
…
…
…
…
2,774
87,720
1,080
31,343


1928
…
…
…
…
3,446
102,960
1,454
39,870


1929
…
…
…
…
3,161
109,483
1,258
42,116


NOTE:—The figures for 1929 are provisional.

TRADE DISPUTES BILL.

Mr. OSWALD LEWIS: 91.
asked the Attorney-General when he proposes to introduce the Bill which appears under his name on the Orders of the Day relating to trade disputes and trade unions?

The SOLICITOR - GENERAL (Sir James Melville): The Bill will be introduced as soon as Parliamentary time permits.

Mr. LEWIS: If the Government have no immediate intention of proceeding with the Bill, will the hon. and learned Gentleman say What is the real object of putting this Motion on the Paper now?

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I did not intend to convey that the Government had no immediate intention of proceeding with the Bill, and I will repeat my answer.

Mr. C. WILLIAMS: When are the Government going to find time for anything
Friend's permission, circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a table giving the information he desires. No imports of granite sets and pavement curbs were registered as consigned from Germany or Czechoslovakia during the years 1924 to 1929.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Will the hon. Gentleman let the granite in free so as to erect tombstones to British industries?

Following is the table:

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. STANLEY BALDWIN: May I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the business for next week?

Mr. P. SNOWDEN: On Monday, we propose to move Mr. Speaker out of the Chair on going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Estimates and Estimates for the Revenue Departments, 1930, and to take the following Votes in Committee: Art and Science Buildings; Labour and Health Buildings; Public Buildings, Great Britain; Public Buildings, Overseas. The Second Reading of the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill, and the Report stage of the Money Resolution on Unemployment Insurance will also be taken.
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday: Further stages of the Coal Mines Bill. In accordance with the agreement reached, the Third Reading will be concluded not later than 7.30 p.m. on Thursday. On Thursday, after completion of the Coal Mines Bill, the further stages of the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill.
Friday: Unemployment Insurance Bill, Second Reading.
On any day, should time permit, other Orders may be taken.

Mr. BALDWIN: Can we suppose that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is aware that two classes of the Votes, 5 and 10, are not yet available in the Vote Office? Perhaps he will be good enough to make inquiries if he has no information.

Mr. SNOWDEN: I think that I can give the right hon. Gentleman a little information on that point. The remaining classes of the Civil Estimates, Classes 5 and 10, to which he refers, will certainly be available on Saturday morning.

Mr. BALDWIN: I am encouraged by the prompt reply of the right hon. Gentleman, and dare I ask anything about the Easter Holidays yet?

Mr. SNOWDEN: That is a matter in which every Member of the House is deeply interested, but I regret that I am not in a position to satisfy the natural anxiety of the right hon. Gentleman. I do not think that an announcement will be delayed much longer.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: rose—

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: On a point of Order. Could not the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) have raised whatever he is going to raise on the Consolidated Fund Bill yesterday?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I did not rise to ask whether an opportunity will be taken to discuss agriculture. That was not the object of my rising, and the hon. and gallant Gentleman is there mistaken. I rose to ask my right hon. Friend whether I understood him to say, with regard to the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill, that it will be taken at a reasonable hour, as in the last Parliament?

Mr. SNOWDEN: The Committee stage will be taken on Thursday. The Second Reading is on Monday, and on Thursday, after we have completed the Coal Mines Bill, the further stages of the Army and Air Force (Annual) Bill will be taken.

Commander BELLAIRS: With reference to the business of the House, may we ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to convey to the Prime Minister the desire of many Members that, when important business is under discussion, the responsible Minister shall be here? For three and a half hours yesterday we were discussing Russia without the chief representatives of the Foreign Office. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs may have had to meet an Egyptian Delegation, but perhaps the business of the House is even more important.

Mr. SNOWDEN: indicated assent.

Ordered,
That the Proceedings on the Consolidated Fund (No. 3) Bill have precedence this day of the Business of Supply."—[Mr. Snowden.]

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 3) BILL.

Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

Orders of the Day — COTTON INDUSTRY.

Sir HERBERT SAMUEL: There will be general agreement that no subject causes greater anxiety among Members of all parties in the House, irrespective of their political opinions, than the gravity of the unemployment problem; and in the country as well as in Parliament, it causes the gravest anxiety to all sections of the nation. But I do not think it is fully realised to what a large extent the recent increase in the numbers of the unemployed is due to the extreme depression—the term is not too strong—which now prevails in the cotton industry. In Lancashire, or in the northwest region of the country, according to the term used in reckoning the unemployment statistics, there are now no fewer than 400,000 unemployed work-people, and of these 100,000 have become unemployed within the last three months. In that division the cotton industry is the predominant industry. There are 160,000 more unemployed there than there were a year ago. Among cotton operatives the rate of employment a year ago was 12 per cent. In old times that would have been considered bad enough, because it is a terrible rate of unemployment, but a month ago the figure was double, it was 24 per cent.; and to-day, although the actual statistics are not available, it is known that the situation is considerably worse than it was last month. Further, a large number of the work-people in the cotton trade, while not actually unemployed, are under-employed working, perhaps, only two looms instead of four, so that their earnings are halved, and the poverty and distress in which these people are plunged is very great. Here are one or two extracts from the Ministry of Labour Gazette.
The reports from the spinning centres are very bad. In Bolton nearly 30 per cent. of the spinners worked less than half time in February.
From the weaving districts there are similar reports:
In Blackburn, 22 mills were stopped at the end of the month"—
that is February—
14 firms have closed down in Accrington, and 30 at Burnley.
So the reports come in from all the cotton towns, or almost all of them. This sudden increase in unemployment, for it has been sudden within the last few months, and has been intensified in the last few weeks, is in no degree connected with, or almost imperceptibly connected with, recent changes in the law. The Clause relating to people "genuinely seeking work" has no application here. No matter how genuinely a cotton operative might have been seeking work in these towns, his task would have been hopeless. It would be easier to gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles than for any cotton operative out of employment in one of those towns to have any chance of finding an occupation by going from place to place genuinely seeking employment. Recent events are an intensification of what has been proceeding during the last few years. It is estimated that within the last few years more than 200 cotton firms have closed down altogether, representing, on the weaving side, over 100,000 looms. It is the common opinion to-day that the trade depression is worse than it has been within the knowledge of a whole generation, some think worse than it has been since the days of the American Civil War, and I feel sure the gravity of these circumstances is not yet fully appreciated by the country or even, perhaps, by Members of this House.
The cause of this state of affairs is not to be found in any importation of foreign manufactured goads. I know that some of my hon. Friends seize upon the increase in the importation of cotton manufactures which has undoubtedly taken place in the last two or three years as though that were an important consideration. The imports are an exceedingly small part of the total volume of the trade, and I was somewhat surprised, on looking into the Statistical Abstract a day or two ago, to find that the imports of foreign manufactured cotton goods into this country to-day are considerably less than they were before the War. The piece goods imported into this country
in 1913 totalled 125,000,000—that is linear yards, which is what matters from the point of view of employment—and in 1928, the figures for that year being the latest available, 83,000,000 linear yards. That shows that imports now are two-thirds only of what they were before the War, and at that time the Lancashire cotton industry was highly prosperous. Other goods—not piece goods—are quoted only in values and not in quantities, and the amount, measured by value, is the same as it was before the War, in spite of the general increase in values.
Nor is the explanation of the present position to be found, as one hon. Member thought, in the importation of cotton goods from Russia. Rashly a question was put down to the President of the Board of Trade as to the extent of the importation of manufactured cotton goods from that country within a certain period, in an endeavour to show that Lancashire trade was suffering severely from this importation. The answer given was that the value of cotton goods imported from Russia within that period was not £1,000,000—I do not know what the hon. Member was expecting—nor even £100,000, nor £1,000, nor £100, but amounted precisely to 20s. worth.

Sir NAIRNE STEWART SANDEMAN: I do not think the President of the Board of Trade said that £1 worth was all that was imported. He said that was all of which he knew. I believe that if he will take the trouble to make a careful search he will not have to go very far to get the information.

Sir H. SAMUEL: I have no doubt the right hon. Gentleman consulted the ordinary sources of information, namely, the Customs returns, which are obtained for statistical purposes, and if there had been more than £1 worth I feel certain the information would have been there. I am afraid these cotton goods from Russia which are supposed to be invading this country in enormous quantities are like the Russian armies that passed through England in the early days of the War—they are the product only of a bright imagination. The cause of the parlous condition of the industry at this moment, as is well known in 4.0 p.m. Lancashire, is undoubtedly to be found, not on the import side, but on the export side. We
have lost, unhappily, an immense proportion of our export trade. Before the War, Lancashire exported more than 6,000,000,000 linear yards of cotton cloth. Last year she exported only 4,000,000,000. In that decline of over 2,000,000,000, of nearly 2,500,000,000 yards, there is to be found the real cause for the widespread unemployment, the closing of mills and the depression of whole districts. Then this country had more than two-thirds of the whole cotton exports of the world. To-day we have less than one-half. The Indian market is the chief factor in this decline. There we have lost half of our trade in the principal market in the world. Our exports have gone down 1,200,000,000 yards, and the fall continues and was intensified last year. It was due mainly to the Indian tariff, under the shelter of which the Indian production of cotton goods has increased by almost precisely the same amount as that which measures our decline, and it is partly due also to the importations from Japan.
Japan sent to India before the War only 3,000,000 yards of cloth, but last year she sent 357,000,000 yards—an amazing increase in a trade in what happens to be our principal market; and that competition is becoming more and more intense. Within the last two years, in the principal product, grey unbleached cotton cloth, the increase in the Japanese trade with India has been no less than 60 per cent., and figures published only this morning show that the competition is becoming more and more severe. Those figures relate to the 10 months ended last January compared with the 10 months ending the previous January, and in those particular commodities sent from Japan the figure has gone up in a single year from 192,000,000 to 332,000,000. That shows the gravity of the formidable problem with which the Lancashire producers are faced. There has been in that period a further, though not a commensurate, fall of British exports of cotton to India.
In these circumstances, with Lancashire struggling for its very economic life, there comes the disaster of a yet further and severer increase of the Indian duties upon imported cotton. There is a preference proposed to be given to British cotton as against Japanese, but that is regarded by manufacturers here as in no degree counterbalancing the effect
that will be felt by the large increase of duties on British cotton. As elsewhere, wherever there is a protective system, and there is a depression in industry, recourse is had to another dose of the same stimulant. It is the same in the United States and Australia. Once accept the principle of Protection as being a proper remedy for depression, and whenever depression comes, as it comes to protected as well as Free Trade countries, there is a demand for further and further increases in the rates of tariff, which increases have to be conceded, and the effect upon the consumer becomes more and more disastrous. People are made poorer—it is an obvious economic truth—if you raise the cost of living, just as much as if you lower their standard of earnings, and any measure taken in India which makes clothing dearer for the hundreds of millions of inhabitants of that country has the same economic effect upon it as a corresponding reduction in their earnings.
In this matter the interest of the Indian consumer corresponds with the interest of the British producer. One wishes to buy and the other wishes to sell commodities as cheaply and of as good quality as can be obtained, and the difficulty of the political situation in India arises from the fact that the Indian Government is hampered in protecting the interest of the Indian consumer by the very fact that that interest is the same as the interest of the British producer, and it is exposed to criticism when seeking to prevent a rise of prices to the Indian consumer on the ground that it means assisting the British producer as against the Indian producer. That is the situation in India, and it is difficult for this country, really, to make effective representations in that regard.
The Government when they came into office appointed a committee to examine all these matters, to ascertain more fully than hitherto the facts and to advise Lancashire as to what course might be adopted. We have heard nothing more of that committee from that day to this. A period of seven or eight months has elapsed, and no report has yet been made. I confess that when the committee was appointed I was surprised at its composition, not from the point of view of
competence, but from the point of view of the capacity of the members of the committee to give adequate time to a. problem so urgent and so complex. The chairman was the President of the Board of Trade. His principal colleague was the First Lord of the Admiralty. Imagine during these last few months, with the innumerable duties imposed upon the right hon. Gentleman, conferences one after the other on the Continent, a great Bill, the Coal Mines Bill, demanding constant negotiations and attendance in this House for long periods—with these things pressing upon the right hon. Gentleman, how would it have been possible for him to give adequate attention to the question of the cotton industry?
No wonder the right hon. Gentleman found it necessary to resign the chairmanship of that committee, and it was obvious that his colleague, the First Lord of the Admiralty, with all the problems relating to his own Department, particularly in regard to the Naval Conference, pressing upon him, could not give adequate attention to this matter. Both those right hon. Gentlemen naturally elected to withdraw from the work of the committee, and at present the chairman is the Home Secretary. But the fact remains that these changes must have involved great disorganisation of the work, and great delay in the presentation of the report. I should have thought it could have been foreseen from the beginning that the President of the Board of Trade, at all events, and probably the First Lord of the Admiralty, could only regard this as a sort of by-product of their activities, and could not possibly give adequate attention to the question. But I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman how the work of the committee now stands, when the inquiry will be completed, when this House and the country may expect to receive the committee's report, and whether, as the result of its deliberations as they have proceeded as yet, he can give the House to-day any conclusions that have been reached or any suggestions that have been arrived at?
Is this committee working in conjunction with the new Economic Advisory Council, or what are the relations between the two bodies? The House and the country have a right to be somewhat impatient at the long delay that has
taken place in this matter, in view of the gravity and urgency of the problem. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to tell us to-day if possible how far the committee considers that the troubles of Lancashire are to be regarded as due to temporary causes; how far the sudden increase in unemployment, the constant steep rise in the curve of unemployment on the chart in Lancashire during the last few months, is due to causes which are of a temporary character, and, in particular, to the fall in the price of cotton which may have hindered manufacturers from proceeding with their activities at as high a rate as they would otherwise desire; how far has it been due also, if at all, to the sudden fall in the value of silver? We shall await with the greatest interest any constructive proposals that may be made by this committee.
I do not believe that Lancashire, in spite of present circumstances, will lose heart, will consider that the position is desperate. It was a familiar saying of Samuel Butler that "life is eight parts cards and two parts play," but, in the long run, the good player always wins, and the two parts play are as important as the eight parts cards. Although the cards may be against Lancashire to-day, with skilful play it may, nevertheless, not lose the game. For example, in relation to Japanese competition, it need not be regarded as a desperate position on account of the much lower wages that are paid in Japan. In the cotton industry it is not the same as in the coal industry, where almost the whole of the cost of production is wage cost. In cotton piece goods, when they reach the Far East market, only one-fourth of the value is wage value. The wages of the cotton operatives, the spinners and the weavers, constitute only one-fourth of the final value of the product as it is sold in the markets of the East. The rest is made up of the cost of raw material, freight and other costs of various kinds.
Therefore, even a large difference between wage costs in Japan and this country need not necessarily be a final and a conclusive consideration. Those figures relate to grey cloth. If you are dealing with the bleached and dyed article, the wage price is a smaller percentage. And in Japan there is a counter balancing factor in the very high cost of capital, which is a serious drawback to
the success of their industry in competition with that of Lancashire. In this country we would not wish to imitate the low wage rates of Japan, but in the organisation of industry there is a good deal from which we can learn, particularly in regard to rationalisation. It may surprise hon. Members to know, as it surprised me to learn, that 70 to 80 per cent. of the whole of the cotton imported into Japan and 70 to 80 per cent. of the whole of the cotton goods sold out of Japan are handled by three firms. Three firms do three-quarters of the whole inward and outward trade of Japan, and, with regard to production, four firms do 40 per cent. of the cotton trade of Japan. Contrast that with the 1,800 spinning and weaving firms of Lancashire. Contrast it with the 700 or 800 exporting merchants of Lancashire and the large number who are engaged in the home trade.
There is, of course, as we all know, a keen effort being made in Lancashire to-day to organise the industry more effectively. There is the Lancashire Cotton Corporation, which has already purchased 70 mills and is creating a great amalgamation of firms. There is a combination among the Egyptian spinners now proceeding. The quilt manufacturers have formed an amalgamation, and in other directions efforts are being made to rationalise the industry. It is interesting to know that to-day in Bombay also there is a proposal to combine into one organisation no fewer than 50 of the mills in Bombay. There is proceeding, here as elsewhere, what I have called, in a previous speech in the House, the second industrial revolution. The first industrial revolution, of 100 years ago and more, substituted machine labour for hand labour; the second industrial revolution, which is proceeding now before our eyes, substitutes vast scale production for smaller scale production, and that must necessarily proceed in Lancashire and is likely to bear good results.
In this connection, I would like to ask the President of the Board of Trade what we are to anticipate from the proposals of the Lord Privy Seal in regard to finance. When he went to Manchester and told the people there that the City—a vague, possibly an elusive, term—was prepared to finance these amalgamations, and the provision of fresh machinery, and so forth, what had he in
mind? Is there anything definite in prospect? Our right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal—I say "our" friend because he is the friend of all of us—is a man of sanguine temperament, and if any of his proposals seem possible, he instantly assumes them to be probable, and when they have reached the stage of probability, to regard them as certain is a very small step further. I am not quite sure whether in this particular matter there is anything very specific and definite to be anticipated for the assistance of the Lancashire cotton trade.
Further, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the Committee have examined—and this perhaps is for the moment the most important consideration of all—the changes in mechanical methods and the effect of such changes upon labour conditions. Ring spinning and automatic looms are working very considerable changes in many countries, and other nations have adopted them to a much greater extent and much more rapidly than we have. In Japan, for example, there are no fewer than 20,000 automatic looms already installed, and one company alone in Japan is manufacturing them at the rate of 400 a month. If it is the case that those looms are far more efficient and less costly in the manufacture than the others, that means a still further intensification of Japanese competition against Lancashire. Of course, we know that they are not suitable for many kinds of production, and that there are certain lines of cotton goods for which they cannot be used, but in the great bulk of production it may be the predominant factor; and here we come to questions affecting the interests of labour, which are of great difficulty and often present a most painful dilemma.
If it is the case that the automatic loom, which means the employment of about half the labour, is more efficient and more economical, what is the duty of the operatives' trade unions in regard to their introduction? There is the conflict between the ultimate interests of the industry as a whole, including the workers, and the immediate interests of the operatives who are directly affected—a most difficult and painful dilemma. We here can speak of the matter in the abstract, merely as an economic or a commercial problem, but when you go into the homes of the
people in the working class districts of the cotton towns, and realise that this man, and that woman, and the other woman are going to be thrown out of work, with very little prospect of employment elsewhere, you have, as I say, an exceedingly painful dilemma. It is almost as though the industry were called upon to undergo a painful surgical operation without an anæsthetic, but it may have to be done, if it is necessary in order to save life.
The problem has arisen in every great change in industrial methods, and it arose most acutely in the previous industrial revolution, when the hand-loom weaver saw his whole livelihood disappear owing to the competition of the factory. It is very much the same now, but inevitably in the long run, if we are to save our trade at all, we must adopt the most efficient methods, and we must endeavour in the process to safeguard as best we can the interests of those workers most seriously affected. I would like the right hon. Gentleman to tell us, if he can, whether the Committee have given their special attention to this very grave and urgent problem, and whether they propose to offer any advice to the manufacturers and workpeople of Lancashire in that regard.
There are two or three other points to which I will very briefly allude. Have the Committee examined the complaints that have been made from the trade with regard to the high cost at the finishing end—bleaching and dyeing—due to a combine that has been brought into existence there, and which has been exceedingly prosperous during all these years when the trade as a whole has been suffering? I believe we shall be obliged to come, in this House, to the conclusion that, while these amalgamations are necessary and inevitable, and indeed economically desirable, in order to produce rationalised industry and production on the best lines, they bring with them very grave dangers to others, very grave dangers to the consumers and to other industries that are not sufficiently organised to cope with monopolies; and we shall be obliged to consider whether it is not necessary to have certain legislation in respect to monopolies of all kinds, whether in oil, petrol, milk, or whatever it may be. That, probably, is a matter which may not be in order on this occasion, but I think I
Shall be in order in inquiring of the right hon. Gentleman whether he and his Committee have devoted attention to that side of the question.
Further, when are we to hear more of the Washington Convention, which is an important factor in this matter, and which would really help to reduce the hours of labour in competing countries to those which are already worked here? Year after year goes by, and still we hear nothing of a Measure to permit of the ratification of that Convention. Lastly, is the Dyestuffs Act, which is another grievance of the Lancashire manufacturers, to come to an end next year in the normal course, or is it proposed to extend it? When the Act was first passed, in 1920, the late Prime Minister, who was then in charge of the matter, said that within five years key industries of that kind ought to be able to establish themselves permanently in this country, and that if they could not do it in five years, it was very doubtful whether they ought to be further assisted at the expense of the community as a whole. Eleven years will have gone by before the Dyestuffs Act comes to an end. It lapses in January, 1931, and I sincerely trust that the Committee will make it clear that they recommend at all events that the Act shall not be further extended, but that manufacturers shall be free to buy their dyes where and when they can best do so.
Those are the questions which I would address to the right hon. Gentleman, and I hope that he will be able to answer some of them at all events in a manner which will give hope for the future of this hard-pressed industry—still a great industry, still providing one-fifth of all the exports of this country, still sending out over £130,000,000 worth of goods each year. We speak of the greatness of our iron and steel trade and of the exports of those products, but cotton exports are twice those of the iron and steel trade. We have had prominently before us the importance of the coal industry and of our export trade in coal, but cotton sends out three times as much, as regards the value of exports, as does the coal industry. And there is this consolation to be borne in mind in the present circumstances. We can sometimes take a little consolation in the similar misfortunes of our neighbours, and the cotton industry,
if it is seriously depressed here, is also gravely depressed in the United States of America and in India, and it may be that world causes which have operated now to our detriment may operate later to our advantage.
Certain factors at the moment undoubtedly are favourable. The fall in the price of the raw material, cotton, although causing great disturbance to the trade and to manufacturers at the moment, must in the long run work to its advantage, because it must mean a cheaper finished product, and in the long run that must mean a larger demand. Similarly, the cheapening in the rates for money, which has been so striking a feature of the last few weeks, must assist all producers, and the Lancashire producers among the rest. The fall in the cost of living which has been proceeding, though strangely slowly, when taken in relation to the fall in the general values of raw products, must also, help in cheapening production in the long run. On the other hand, we have this continual increase in tariffs here and there, and we have still an enormous burden of taxation, which presses upon industry, which presses upon the whole nation, and from which, I fear, there is little prospect of relief in the near future. However that may be, I am convinced that Lancashire will still display her old qualities of courage and perseverance, and that by some means and some day she will once more restore this industry to its old position, in which the nation can find prosperity and can take pride.

Mr. HAMMERSLEY: In choosing to draw attention to this question of the condition of the cotton industry, I think the Liberal party are to be congratulated. It is difficult to express in figures the real gravity of this problem. To say that one person out of four in Lancashire is now out of a job conveys some impression. but it does not convey the hardship which is taking place throughout the county. Since the beginning of the year over 100,000 new people have been thrown out of work in the Lancashire cotton trade. In my own constituency one-third more people are out of work this year than was the case last year, It does not require any great imagination to appreciate how, when an industry of this character shows a continuous and in fact precipitous decline, such as we have been ex-
periencing during the last few months, there is a great danger to the whole of the economic fabric of the country.
The speech of the right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel), if he will forgive me for saying so, had one of the detractions of so many speeches in this House on industrial subjects, and that is that it was to a great extent academic. It was not in any sense of a constructive character, nor did it put forward any proposal that could even remotely be considered as helpful. He referred to the fact that our chief difficulty was our export trade; that was within the knowledge of most hon. Members and students of the subject. He dealt with the bad effect of protective duties on Indian imports. The speech which was made in regard to that particular item could have been much more effectively made by the right hon. Gentleman sitting as the President of an Indian consumers council than in this House. What right have we to suggest that we can control the fiscal policy of those who represent the cotton industry? We have to deal with the facts as they stand, and I suggest that one of the great disadvantages of discussing a complicated industrial problem like this is that we are so apt to indulge in the application of our particular theories. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen certainly gave a very accurate analysis of the situation when he pointed out that this was a question which could not be dealt with in watertight compartments, that we were suffering from lack of efficient salesmanship, and that in the industry as a whole there were no modern methods. With all those statements and that analysis I am sure that hon. Members in all parts of the House will be in thorough agreement.
There is no quarrel among us as to what is the trouble. We may put emphasis on this or on that, but, on the whole, the main drawback is the lack of organisation, and that is responsible for the bad state of affairs at the present time. If we are going to tackle this question, we must address ourselves to the analysis and put forward remedies. What are the remedies? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen put forward rationalisation as the remedy, but what is meant by rationalisation? I suggest that rationalisation means much
more than a mere reduction of the cost of production. You cannot in the present state of affairs, when every cotton spinning industry in the world is depressed, and when they are all suffering from overproduction, expect to find a solution by merely grinding down the cost of production. That is not the kind of battle in which this country ought to engage.
I wish to confine my remarks to the narrow point of rationalisation. The first remark I have to make about rationalisation is that all our cotton-producing mills are faced with the problem of over-production. They are not profit-earning entities as a whole in these circumstances, and rationalisation cannot be brought into being without a constructive system of finance. How are we going to accomplish rationalisation, how can it be effected, and what progress is being made in regard to it? I should like to say that rationalisation must take a view of the whole industry, and that it must be comprehensive in its character. You are not going to be helpful to the Lancashire cotton industry, or any section of it, if you are going to concentrate your efforts merely upon reducing the cost of production inside one particular section, and ignore the problem of how to sell the product you make in the markets of the world.
You can grind down the cost of production if you like, and use your finance to bring together mills which at the moment are burdened with financial charges; you can cut those charges out, but, if you have potential over-production inside a section, all you are doing is to create a new item of competition within that section, and you are reducing the whole profit-earning capacity of that section. Rationalisation must first proceed through the section and then on to the whole. You have to treat the section as a whole, and not as a number of units inside the section. If you contemplate the units inside the section, you make things worse instead of better.
It is my view that one of the most astonishing facts which we have to deal with is the suggestion that one large amalgamation can deal with the whole of the Lancashire cotton trade. What a farcical and absurd proposal it is that through one large amalgamation you should be able to rationalise over 3,000 different companies. There is outside
Lancashire a very wrong view of the magnitude of the Lancashire cotton trade, which is a much bigger industry than most people contemplate. If you are going to have amalgamation, you must produce machinery which will cause your large-scale amalgamations to be formed not only among your financially embarrassed units, but among your strong units. The most inefficient mills are those which have the greatest financial charge.
The only practical proposals for amalgamation before the Lancashire people at the present time are the proposals of the Lancashire Cotton Corporation. In the main, that is an amalgamation of financially embarrassed units. We must deal, not merely with the financially unfit, but we must also make a plan to amalgamate the fit. The proposal of the Lancashire Cotton Corporation is the only practical step open to Lancashire manufacturers and spinners, if they wish to take steps towards real rationalisation. This corporation is financed by the Bank of England, and it consists in the main of mills forced to amalgamate by the pressure of certain joint stock banks in the North of England. Those joint stock banks realise that merely to bring a number of unprofitable units together does not necessarily make them profitable.
Why should these joint stock banks and the Bank of England agree to a scheme which is merely a collection of the lame ducks of the industry? Most of these financially embarrassed mills have uncalled capital, and the Lancashire Cotton Corporation scheme means the calling up of the whole of that uncalled capital. Under that plan, the whole of the uncalled capital is to be called up, and by that means the joint stock banks will be able to pursue a policy which, taken in isolation, they would not care to take. They would be laying themselves open to an accusation of an unconscionable course of action, because the result would cause the ruin of thousands of shareholders, and would do very little practical good to the industry as a whole. It must be borne in mind that in a large number of the mills, as large a proportion as 80 per cent. of the shareholders will be ruined by the proposal to call up all the uncalled capital. By that means the joint stock banks get the whole of the uncalled capital to be called up. One might very well inquire: Why should the Bank of England back up this matter?
The reason for the Bank of England support is straightforward; they only propose to provide a debenture of 4s. per spindle when the cost of replacement is 50s. per spindle, therefore it would appear that their proposition is a very sound one.
In backing that proposition, it appears to me that the advisers of the Bank of England have overlooked the important fact that rationalisation, to be successful, must envisage the elimination of the unfit as well as the integration of the fit. In any circumstances the Lancashire Cotton Corporation is not going to be as successful as was hoped, for they are now faced by the competition of more efficient mills, and people are not now so optimistic about it. The Lancashire Cotton Corporation are now forced to look abroad to see how they can get mills which are more profitable industrially into this amalgamation. At the present time, their eyes are turned to the Egyptian section of the trade. That section represents about £18,000,000 sterling, and it has been a profitable trade during the last five years. As a matter of fact, its profits have been greater during the last five years than they were before the War. The House can imagine what is going to take place in Lancashire if the Lancashire Cotton Corporation, on this low basis of 4s. per spindle, takes in mills comprising the profitable Egyptian section. My suggestion is that the whole of the Egyptian section will be brought down to the new basis, and that that industry, what is at present a national profit-earning industry, is going to be made a losing industy; we are going to turn a national asset into a national liability by tackling this problem in a piecemeal and wholly irrational fashion.
If I may recapitulate, the two points that I want to make are, first of all, that rationalisation must be comprehensive, and, secondly, that to enforce rationalisation with this one amalgamation is wrong. There is, however, another factor. The inquirer might well ask why, if there are a number of the better mills to which the Lancashire Cotton Corporation scheme makes no appeal, can they not get together and amalgamate? The answer is to be found in the fact that the normal means of finance at the present time are blocked. Constructive assistance by way of finance is necessary. The Lord Privy
Seal, speaking in Manchester, used words to this effect, that, if you had a scheme which was industrially desirable and financially sound, the City would find the finance. That speech was a most misleading speech. The Lord Privy Seal has had in front of him schemes which are industrially desirable, which are financially sound, and which have been "vetted" from every point of view, and yet the finance cannot be found. The explanation of that is very simple. There is only one means whereby the Lord Privy Seal can explain his speech. He can explain it because he said that the schemes must be of such a character as would appeal to our business in the City. We have to assume that the Socialist party now stand for and connive at the industrial dictatorship of what is called the City, in other words, the Bank of England. That is a new role for the Socialist party, and one that they did not advocate in Lancashire. Either they have to stand for the industrial dictatorship of the Bank of England in this country, or they have to repudiate that speech, or they have to formulate a very different line of policy from that which is being followed in Lancashire at the present time.
The Bank of England has produced a scheme which provides £2,000,000 of debentures, and the satellites of the Bank of England—the various issuing houses—are pledged to the Bank of England scheme. Whatever they might like to do in any other direction, they cannot do it. The joint stock banks who normally finance cotton business are full up with frozen credits. Many of them have commitments that they want to get out of. They do not want to have any more cotton business. No comprehensive view of the cotton trade is taken by the joint stock banks as a whole. There are individual joint stock banks which have made advances, but they desire definitely to get out of those advances, and it would appear that the policy which is being pursued at present is to back up the Bank of England in an attitude which is rather like that of a Mussolini, in order to force particular, and to my mind entirely too narrow, lines of amalgamation on a reluctant industry. I am forced to the conclusion that, unless the Lancashire cotton trade is to go from bad to worse in view of the fact that the normal
avenues of finance are blocked, the Government itself must intervene. The "Daily Herald" the other day wrote this—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I am glad to hear that hon. Members opposite appreciate what is coming. The "Daily Herald" wrote:
Day by day it becomes more urgent that something should be done to stop the block in Lancashire. Mills are either working short time or closing down altogether. The export of cotton piece goods for the last three months shows a 13 per cent. fall compared with the same period last year. Cotton, more than any other industry, is driving the unemployment figures up.
These are the facts. Pious phrases are not going to get the cotton trade out of its troubles. The action that the present Government have already taken has been to the definite harm of the Lancashire industry. They have done nothing to benefit it. They have pursued an obsolete Free Trade policy at home; they have acquiesced in a weak surrender to the Nationalists in India, which has added an additional burden to our problem; a great deal of time has been spent in endeavouring to negotiate a Tariff Truce at Geneva which would deprive us of bargaining power abroad; the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a fanatical and wholly gratuituous announcement in reference to the Silk Duties, has made what was a profitable industry extremely uncertain, and has seriously increased the volume of unemployment. Contrast these actions of the Labour party with the statements which they made in Lancashire during the Election. What were they going to do? They were going to have a lightning inquiry into this industry; they were going to have all the resources of the State concentrated cm the examination of this problem; and, when a solution was found, they were going to act, and act quickly. What have they done? They have set up an inquiry, and all that we know about it is that it has continuously Changed its chairman. There is no policy and no result, and meanwhile week by week unemployment increases. The action of this Government with respect to the cotton trade reveals them to my mind as spineless, dilatory and meretricious. They are going to be condemned for what they have done; they are going to be condemned much more for what they have not done; and they are going to be mercilessly condemned for their callous disregard of the interests of
those by whose votes they got into power.

Mr. LANG: I, too, am very glad that the opportunity has been taken by the party below the Gangway opposite to bring into discussion here, and into public notice, the parlous position of the cotton trade in Lancashire. Every one of us, no matter on which side of the House we may sit, who represents one of the great cotton counties, will be aware, not only of the very great interest that is felt in this matter, but of the real amount of distress and depression that is prevalent. Lancashire has many assets. The cotton towns possess a population that is thrifty, with a skill second to none, and they produce a product which has no real rival. And yet, despite this skill, this thrift, and the excellence of their product, they have found themselves, and they find themselves to-day, with a growing unemployment and depression which is not temporary, but which seems to be well nigh permanently settled upon them.
In the speeches that we have heard this afternoon—difficult speeches to follow, but all suffering in some sense, as I thought, from vagueness in this direction—serious charges have been brought against an industry with, as it were, nobody placed in the dock, until the concluding statement of the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Hammersley). He, as I thought, with total irrelevance to all the rest of what he had said, turned and pointed an accusing finger at the present Government. Exactly what the present Government had to do with the matters which the hon. Member very skilfully and subtly introduced, I was not able to see. I should have thought that the one clear thing which issued from his speech was that private enterprise, at any rate, stood roundly and soundly condemned—that he had proved it to be incompetent to manage its own business; and that is what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) so properly and, I thought, so carefully—because there was no exaggeration—said about the position in Lancashire, namely, that there had been a proved failure of private enterprise. I feel, therefore, that, whatever may have to be said from these benches, we are not in the dock, and are not called upon to explain the position which at present
exists in Lancashire. The responsibility is not ours, and I am not sure, either, that it is upon the shoulders of the previous Government as a Government, but it is upon the shoulders of right hon. and hon. Members opposite who still cling to a theory of enterprise which in the coal industry, and again in the cotton industry, has produced such deplorable results.
I am glad that the Government took promptly in hand the setting up of a committee of inquiry, because I think that the one thing to be avoided at all costs is that the cotton trade should be made the cockpit of politics in the sense in which the coal trade has been. The coal trade for too long has been a sort of cockpit of politics, and I sincerely hope, for the sake of industry at large and our own people in Lancashire particularly, that the cotton trade will not be similarly mishandled. It is a matter for clear and careful analysis, and, as far as possible, an analysis outside political prejudice. We on this side are as anxious as hon. Members below the Gangway opposite for the Report of this Committee. We are anxious to know exactly what the Committee has to suggest. We have no doubt that the inquiry will be of the fullest nature, and that it will cover every relevant issue; but the problem is one the gravity of which is increasing by leaps and bounds, and some of us on this side, and also, I hope, some on the other side of the House, think that the position has become one of real emergency, a position to which ordinary standards of progress do not any longer apply, but that it ought to be said, and said strongly and quickly, that the position of the cotton trade in Lancashire is so parlous and so serious that not merely must the findings of the Committee be expedited, but nothing must be allowed to stand in the way.
We all of us are interested in and strongly sympathetic towards the very big problems which beset the Government of this country at the present time. The question of the Naval Conference is a very great and vital question. Some of us would say, perhaps, that it is second to none. But alongside of it there seems to me to be the question of the war that he have in our midst, and the poverty resulting from it. The hon. Member for Stockport spoke very fully, and, if I may say so, almost too subtly for me, on the
question of rationalisation, and that is a problem which has to be faced. We may or may not like it, we may or may not approve of it, but of its inevitability we can have no doubt. I hope, however, that we on this side of the House who at present constitute the Government will not wait for inevitability, but will see that, alongside this growing process of rationalisation, there is a further rationalisation—a preparation of society for the results which must accrue.
We are frequently told, and it is perfectly true, that the charges for social services in this countruy, amounting, I think, to something over £3 per head per annum, are very much larger than the charges in the countries of some of our competitors, some of them, like Italy, going down to well under 10s. That is true, and I, at any rate, do not repent it. Industry itself has failed to meet its social duties. It has failed to make proper provision for the people engaged in it. We have heard a great deal about falling profits; we have heard a great deal about losses, and losses there certainly have been; but the losses of people who have invested are not the only losses in the cotton industry. There are the losses which the people engaged in the industry have had to encounter—an inability to provide adequately for old age, and an inability to provide for the stormy and expensive periods of sickness.
I am perfectly sure that the position in Lancashire to-day is as grave as the position in many parts of South Wales. What has largely concealed it from the public eye has been the fact that in the cotton industry, unlike the coal industry, the women have been employed alongside the men. If it were not for the fact that women are employed in the 5.0 p.m. industry, so that although the men may be out of work for a long time or may be frequently unemployed at recurring periods, yet the women may be still working and bringing some sort of subsistence to the home, the position of Lancashire would be almost too ugly to bear any kind of inspection. But we are moving swiftly to a graver position still. So I hope that we shall be reassured from the Front Bench that the Government, with an anxious eye and with a concentrated mind, will be watching this process of
rationalisation and endeavouring to secure that there is some provision for the people who must inevitably be misplaced. In that respect I am glad that the Government have had the wisdom and the courage boldly to tackle, in the recent unemployment Measure, the question of "not genuinely seeking work." The right hon. Member for Darwen, in sympathetic and true phrase, said that it was not a question of "genuinely seeking work" in Lancashire, as for many people there was no work to be sought. It is literally true that there have been, not merely hundreds, but thousands of Lancashire cotton operatives genuinely seeking work who have been refused unemployment benefit. The abolition of the old provision as from the 13th of this month has been a great boon to these people.
Those of us who represent, as I had the honour to represent, a great industrial cotton town in Lancashire, are determined that upon every conceivable occasion the gravity of the position shall be impressed upon the House and upon our own Government. It is impossible to exaggerate the seriousness of the position. It would be ridiculous to suggest that anything stated here this afternoon can be an over-elaboration of the danger that is before us. I hope that some measures can be found to counteract that danger. We have had cotton fairs. They are still proceeding. But that is not sufficient. I would like to be told—I do not know how far the President of the Board of Trade will be able to give such information—whether it would be possible, either now or as a result of the work of the committee of inquiry, to suggest that there should be some definite mark placed upon the cotton goods produced in this country, and some particular mark put upon our Lancashire goods. I would like to feel that when I went into a shoe to make my modest purchases I would be able to ask for and to see before me Lancashire goods with the Lancashire mark. There is every reason why Lancashire should be proud of its products. I believe that many people would like to be able to purchase more Lancashire goods if they were able to identify them.
I have noticed during the last few days very elaborate maps placed in public places advertising for the Empire Market-
ing Board the agriculture and fisheries of this country, rehearsing for us lessons which we had thankfully forgotten years ago of different parts of this country that produce different products. Would it not be possible to have the textile industry similarly advertised and represented, so that people waiting for trains and children on the way to school might learn something of the great industrial and productive side as well as the agricultural side of our country? We know of the depression in agriculture. In this House we have suffered anxiety, embarrassment and hard labour in an endeavour to relieve the depression in the coal industry. I am hoping that something can be done for the cotton industry before we reach that perilous position, and that is why I have ventured to make these suggestions.
There is one other suggestion. It might be a good thing if the Committee now sitting is able to inquire, or if the President of the Board of Trade would order inquiries to be made, into the possibility of the utilisation of waste. I am prepared to put before him experiments now being carried on in my own constituency, where an attempt is being made, I believe successfully, to produce a raw material largely by the utilisation of waste. If, as I am informed, there is a prospect of employing some thousands of people in Lancashire alone upon the utilisation of this waste, it is a matter that might well be inquired into. I am glad that the question of the cotton industry has been raised to-day. I congratulate hon. Members of the Liberal party upon their opportunity to raise it, and upon their realisation of what I consider to be the greatest of our industrial problems to-day. I hope that as a result of this discussion and of what we shall be told from the Front Bench there will be new hope for our people in Lancashire and encouragement to go forward, and that we may see at any rate some possibility of light in the very great darkness over that splendid and loyal and able county.

Mr. E. D. SIMON: Listening to the speeches that we have just heard almost creates the impression that the cotton industry is to-day a highly inefficient industry. I wish to say at once that we have not raised this subject on any such ground. The cotton industry, on the
contrary, in many ways we believe to be a highly efficient, and in many ways one of the most efficient industries in the country. Even at the present time we are doing practically half the export trade of the world, in spite of the fact that our wage level is higher than that of any country and that our taxation is the highest of any country. With regard to wages, it is true that even in the Southern States of the United States the wages are actually lower than in the cotton trade of Lancashire. It is true that New England wages are higher than Lancashire wages, but the cotton trade there is suffering far more serious depression that the industry in Lancashire. It is no mean feat that Lancashire has been able to perform with the heavy burden upon it. In many ways the trade is an efficient trade.
I am not going to say anything more about the seriousness of the depression or the suddenness of the increase of depression, except that in the last few weeks reports have been coming in, from Japan, Italy, Czechoslovakia and India, that in all those countries the same sudden and severe depression has been setting in. The depression of the last few weeks is not peculiar to Lancashire; it is a world depression; and we may therefore hope that it is due to temporary causes. Still, we have to face the fact that, quite apart from the temporary depression of the recent period, we have lost 30 per cent. of our pre-War trade and have an appalling problem of unemployment. The hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. Gibson) will no doubt point out that in his Division the unemployment has reached the appalling figure of something over 55 per cent. Nothing could be more serious than the present emergency. The question is what can he make in the way of constructive suggestion.
After the attack of the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Hammersley) on my right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) for not making constructive suggestions, I naturally listened very eagerly for constructive suggestions from the hon. Member for Stockport. A less constructive speech I never heard. He referred to the Lancashire Cotton Corporation. I am not in the cotton trade myself, and I do not pretend to have an opinion regarding that Cor-
poration, but it is a very big thing and an attempt to get something like 100 mills together. I think that the Bank of England is to be congratulated on the initiative shown and the risk taken—there will be some risk—in finding £2,000,000 for this great attempt at rationalisation. The hon. Member for Stockport says that it is not rationalisation because it deals only with one section of the industry. The definition of rationalisation is that of the hon. Gentleman himself, and I am not prepared to accept it.

Mr. HAMMERSLEY: The hon. Member has missed my point. My point was that we must not restrict our methods. My objection to the Lancashire Cotton Corporation is that it restricts other amalgamations.

Mr. SIMON: The hon. Member devoted almost the whole of his speech to raising objections to this particular amalgamation for all sorts of technical reasons which I do not pretend to understand. I merely feel that that amalgamation has been promoted by a large section of the trade, very able people who know a great deal about it, and I think that when we have a trade prepared to put a scheme of that sort into force it is exactly the kind of thing that ought to be encouraged. Apart from the hon. Member's violent attack on the Corporation there was not a single constructive suggestion in his speech. Another attempt at rationalisation by the cotton trade is being made by the Joint Committee of Cotton Trade Organisations. That committee is representative of all sections of the industry, including the operatives, who are taking a very active part in it. The first thing they did five years ago was to set up a cotton trade statistical bureau, which has produced a very large amount of valuable information, on which future rationalisation can be based.
But I think general agreement has emerged in the cotton trade that, while the trade is highly efficient regarding the more specialised branches, it is inefficient as regards the bulk production and bulk sale of the ordinary standard article. It is in that branch particularly that we have been beaten by Japan and other countries, and have lost the largest proportion of our trade. It is recognised
throughout the trade that our merchanting system, a very specialised system, which is highly efficient regarding specialised trade, is highly inefficient in regard to the mass production and mass sale of ordinary grey cloth. The Joint Committee of Cotton Trade Organisations has been giving very careful consideration to the question of how it is possible to get back a portion of this mass production and bulk trade. It has already been the subject of large experiments conducted by merchants in China. They did manage to land in China, at very much reduced prices, a large quantity of standard cloth. Unfortunately the experiment, owing partly to the heavy depreciation of silver, has not been altogether a success, but the cotton trade organisations and the cotton trade believe that it is one of the most important steps in rationalisation, and they are trying very hard to get together a special organisation to deal with this mass production and mass sale trade.
It seems to emerge that it is not to the financial interest of any individual firm or group of firms to promote this mass sale and production. I believe that there are serious financial difficulties in the matter. There have been already certain negotiations with the Government. This is the kind of thing in which the Government might seriously consider whether they could not help the trade in a big experiment in mass production and mass sale. It seems to be a matter which the trade is finding very difficult, but it is of the utmost importance, and I hope the Government will investigate it and make it possible to give it some assistance.
Coming to the question of the Committee that has been set up, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen has referred to the very unfortunate delay that has occurred from the fact that the right hon. Gentleman was not able to give the necessary time to it himself. The Home Secretary will now become chairman. If he could give the whole of his time to the question he would, no doubt, be a very excellent chairman, but he cannot. It really was a mistake to make any Member of the Cabinet chairman of an important committee of this sort which has to deal with a matter of the most frightful complexity. The report of the Balfour Com-
mittee a year ago on the cotton trade filled over 160 closely printed pages. This committee has to go through the whole of that matter again and to deal with a vast mass of evidence.
I should like to contrast the work of the committee, which has already been sitting six or seven months, with the work of the committee of one, Lord Macmillan, who has recently reported on the dispute in the wool trade. He was free to go to Yorkshire, and he devoted his whole time to the problem, and in the course of a very few weeks produced a very able and valuable report. If something of that sort could have been done in this case, it would have been far better. The committee has to sit in London, and the leaders of the cotton trade have to waste time coming here. An eminent member of the trade said to me, "When we get before a committee of that sort, we find it impossible to tell them the truth." That is putting it rather strongly, but everyone who has sat on a committee will realise that, when a witness comes before the committee to make a case, you cannot get the facts out of him anything like as well as if you could meet him privately and have a friendly conversation. A man cannot talk as freely, as a formal witness, as when he has a small committee or one person to deal with privately.
It has really been a mistake to appoint a committee of that sort, but it is far too late to change it. I hope the Committee will report at an early date, but it is exceedingly probable they will find that they have not been able to deal in detail with some of the most difficult points. If I may quote the analogy of the Royal Commission on Local Government which reported a year ago, they sat for rather over five years. They said one of the most important things was the question of the municipal civil service. They had not been able to give enough time to that and they suggested that another committee should be appointed to deal with it. It is very probable that this Committee will not be able to deal with some of the urgent points in this immensely complicated and difficult trade.
It seems to me there are three main aspects of rationalisation which will have to be dealt with. The first is the question whether costs are unduly high owing to the level of wages and the machinery used
for deciding disputes. The present dispute at Burnley is an illustration of the complexities of that kind of problem. That is one special sphere in which a great deal of thought and investigation is necessary. The second is what the right hon. Gentleman calls the second industrial revolution, the increased scale of different sections of the trade. There is a general feeling that there are far too many amalgamations. There is this big movement for bulk production and sale, and there is the whole question of vertical amalgamation, which some people believe is the only satisfactory solution of the troubles of the cotton trade.
When you have done that, you come up against what perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would call the third industrial revolution. You have to have all these amalgamations, they all have monopolies and they are inclined to put the costs up too high and you have to set to work to find out methods of controlling these monsters that you have created and preventing them charging unduly high prices. There are many people in the trade who believe that some of the finishing trades, which have practically a monopoly, are charging unduly high prices and are very seriously hampering the development of the trade. So that you have those three broad sections which include most of the main possibilities of rationalisation, first of all wages and conditions of labour, secondly the importance of larger units and, thirdly, the importance of controlling the large units when you have got them.
It seems to me possible that in some aspects of these three questions the Committee may find that two, three or four things are really essential and that they have not been able to deal with them as fully as they would like. If that is the case, rather than go on sitting like the Royal Commission on Local Government, for five years they should appoint separate committees, preferably committees of a single commissioner, send them to Lancashire to negotiate with the interests concerned in the trade and try to come to a solution and then come back and report to the right hon. Gentleman. I hope he will bear that in mind. I know the suggestion has been made in other quarters as one method of enabling him to get the committee to report more quickly and to stop this state of uncer-
tainty in which the trade is now. So far the Government has done nothing for the cotton trade except to make promises, first of all to appoint this Committee, indicating that something will be done, and then the promise of financial aid made by the Lord Privy Seal at Manchester the other day.
An able member of the cotton trade said to me the other day that the difficulty with an old trade like this is that it adheres to old-fashioned methods. People have been born and have grown up in certain methods. He said there is too much conservatism in the trade. Some people think there is too much conservatism in this House but everyone will agree that too much conservatism in a trade is bad and dangerous. He suggested that many employers were too conservative about the adoption of new methods and new machinery and many operatives were conservative in adhering to traditional methods of working which might well be improved. He suggested, too, that the banks were conservative in considering the part they might play in the rehabilitation of the industry. I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman not to give anyone an opportunity, when the Report is published, of adding to that list of complaints that the difficulties of the trade in the future may be due to the timidity or the conservatism of the Government. We are at a time when new types of action are needed, I am a firm believer in individual enterprise, and I believe the cotton trade can only flourish under something like the present system, but old-fashioned individual enterprise by itself is not sufficient. Certain monopolies require Government control, but in some ways they want Government assistance and stimulation. Perhaps the main fault of the cotton trade is the excessive individualism of many Lancashire people, and that is the difficulty the hon. Member for Stockport referred to, that you have not been able to get men into amalgamations except by the sheer threat of bankruptcy.
It may be that the Government can, in other ways, help to bring forward rationalisation. I hope it will not be necessary to adopt compulsory measures. As the result of discussions and negotiations, it is at least possible that the Government may be able to devise methods
of helping the more progressive sections of the trade and securing a kind of rationalisation which they may find to be useful and stimulating. I beg the Government to get this Report out at the earliest possible moment, not to adhere too much to tradition but to take their courage in both hands, make up their minds what are the right lines of action, to act courageously and help the trade to get rid of this decline and get back to a period of prosperity and increasing employment.

Mrs. HAMILTON: In the course of the Debate one has noticed a kind of change coming over the subject. Arranged, perhaps, in the first instance as a day of mortification for the Government, if not of mourning for the cotton trade, it is developing into a kind of funeral of individualism. Different as are the views taken by speakers representing various constituencies, no one so far has produced anything that can be called a whole-hearted defence of individualism. Indeed, there seems to be general agreement that, provided we qualify it with the useful word "excessive," individualism is what is wrong with the cotton trade, and generally there is an amplitude of evidence for the view that the severity of the distress from which Lancashire is suffering is indeed due to the fact that for the last seven or eight years there has been the steady downward movement that we are now witnessing, the disintegration, the falling to pieces of the individualistic system, which has been unable to stand the successive shocks, first of decontrol after the War, then of the orgy of speculation and the subsequent changing conditions. In the speech of the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Hammersley) which interested me particularly, I seemed to hear two voices. At one point Dr. Jekyll proclaimed a rather uncertain faith in Safeguarding Duties and horror at the surrender to Indian nationalism of the Government. In other parts Mr. Hyde in much more serious tones made a speech which must have reminded the President of the Board of Trade of many of the speeches made on this side in defence of the Coal Mines Bill. The upshot of the hon. Member's remarks was to produce an argument more clear and definite and coherent than has hitherto been heard in the House for that which many of us
are actually inclined to some form of organisation resembling a cotton control board. The whole force of his criticism was an argument for a larger measure of comprehensive control such as could only come under a control originated in a department which has the sanction and the authority of the Government behind it.
I seemed to hear echoes of that same, though more unwilling, recognition in the speech of the hon. Member for Withington (Mr. Simon), who admitted that control, assistance, and supervision might be necessary in certain directions I want to urge that point of view from a slightly different angle. Like any other Member of a Lancashire constituency, I feel, as we have all felt in the last three months particularly, haunted, depressed, and shaken by the knowledge of what is going on in the way of real suffering in our constituencies. Conditions in the coal trade were not worse than the conditions are now in most Lancashire towns. The suffering which is now being endured comes on top of a long period during which hardly any householder has known what it is regularly to bring home anything like a full-time wage. Short time by the weavers and others has exhausted every kind of reserve and left some of the proudest, most patient, most self-respecting people in the world with almost nothing to fall back upon.
I do not want to exaggerate those sufferings, but I want the House to realise them sharply, because, for Heaven's sake, let us in our political wisdom save cotton from having to go exactly on the same road as coal. Let us also realise that perhaps in the case of cotton an exceptional edge is given to the suffering by the fact within the knowledge of all Members of this House that a very large proportion among those unemployed workers are women, and a very large proportion of them are married women. According to the last monthly issue of the Labour Gazette, 90,000 women are unemployed in the cotton industry, and they represent over 70 per cent. of the unemployed women in this country. The point I want to make with the greatest emphasis of which I am capable, is that while it is true, on the one hand, that the existence of our social services system has made it possible for
these people to tolerate the conditions during the past months and past years and manage with things as they are, there has not been a time over the last seven or eight years when the standard of living of a working Lancashire family has really been satisfactory.
The point I want to stress for the attention of the Committee and the attention of any body of people, whether in this House or anywhere else, considering how rationalisation may most usefully be introduced, is that it should in the future not be based, as, in the case of Lancashire in the past, the introduction of steam was based, on the exploitation of the workers engaged in the industry. It surely is necessary at this stage, when we are considering how this industry can be re-organised, to lay it down as an absolutely vital part of a satisfactory re-organisation that the standard of living of the working family should be satisfactorily established. The low level of consuming power throughout Lancashire is no small factor contributing to the present distress. If you recall that in 1924 and again in 1928 the Ministry of Labour census showed that the average full-time earnings in the cotton industry were 37s. a week, you have there the measure of the social difficulty and of the protracted economic distress from which the industry is now suffering. Members familiar with Lancashire constituencies cannot help feeling that while accepting rationalisation and recognising fully that re-organisation, co-ordination, and unification are the only conditions on which the industry can be restored, it is vital that the new power which scientific invention and discovery has put within our control, should not be used as the old power was in the nineteenth century to waste and to destroy human lives, and that when the mills are at work again, as we hope they may be, it may not be so necessary in future as it was in the past, to think of them as dark, satanic mills.

Sir N. STEWART SANDEMAN: I should like to associate myself with what the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Hamilton) has said about the terrible conditions in Lancashire. I think that they are going through a very much worse time than was ever experienced in the coal trade and that they are bearing it with a patience from which the miners
might take a lesson. I think that it would have been very much better, from the point of view of the right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel), if he could have postponed this Debate until the Report had come out, because he was extraordinarily badly briefed. He had not got up his subject at all. I used to come into the House and listen to the right hon. Member speak, and I used to think what wonderful stuff it was, but when he speaks on something one happens to know something about, one begins to wonder. I am afraid his words will not carry the same weight with me in the future as they may have done in the past. He spoke about Russia and twitted me on the answers which I received from the President of the Board of Trade on the subject. The first answer which I received from the President of the Board of Trade was not really a bad one for a beginning. It was £5,000, but it dropped very rapidly to £1, which related not to a red cap, but to lace from Russia. I would hazard a guess that perhaps the President of the Board of Trade has some information which he has obtained in a roundabout way, that it is not a question of £5,000 or of only £1,000 which has come into this country.
The right hon. Member for Darwen was singularly lacking in any constructive policy for the cotton trade. He did not even analyse what was wrong. Evidently he has no practical experience of cotton spinning, cotton mills and the cotton trade, and I do not think that Lancashire will give him very great thanks for his contribution to this Debate. I would say to the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Lang) that, even if the cotton trade were socialised to-morrow, you would be up against exactly the same difficulties which we have to face to-day. No matter whether you socialise it or run it under the existing system, you have to find out what is wrong with the trade and then put it right. I do not propose to throw blame upon anyone, either upon the system, the owners, the operatives, the trade unions or the Government, because I think that it is much more a national question, and one to which we really want to get down and try to the best of our ability to find out what is wrong with the trade. Until quite recently the only portion of the trade really prospering was
the fine spinning, and we all know that of late that has had a set-back. One of the reasons for that is the question of the price of silver coming down; and the other is that everybody is hard up and trying to buy coarser stuff.
Our export trade has gone down. One reason for this is the enormous tariffs put up against us, and another reason is the dear cost of production. Why is our cost of production so dear? First of all, we have the social services. If the social services were not there, I think that wages would be higher. These services amount, probably, to about 1 per cent. on the cost of yarn. You cannot have it in wages and in social services. To begin with none of the other countries producing cotton yarn and cotton goods have the same weight of 1 per cent. to carry I think that probably the worst of the causes of this dear cost of production is the enormous amount of short time. I know from past experience what short time has meant in our works, and I know perfectly well that when it comes to be a question of short time, you do not know what your on-costs will be and the price at which you will be able to sell. There are certain trade union regulations which are different—we may as well face the facts—from the regulations in any other country. There is the question of the number of looms, hours, this, that, and the next thing. I will give the other side a "hit up." There are far too many directors in the cotton mills. I have heard of people who were directors of 10 and 15 cotton mills. If they had stuck to one or two and had worked hard, there might have been a different story to-day. We have a certain amount of restrictive legislation compared with what exists in countries abroad where they are manufacturing cotton. We have restriction of hours, factory laws, and other things. I am rather a believer in very stringent factory laws, because, even from a mercenary point of view, if the people are healthy, they will work more happily and harder.
There is another very vital point to consider in the Lancashire cotton trade, and that is excessive handling. Just picture the position. The cotton comes into Manchester and is put on to a lorry or into a train and sent out to the cotton mills. After it has been in the mill it is put on to a lorry again and sent away, so many
miles, to a weaving shed, and then it may be sent on again for dyeing and finishing. I do not know how many miles a pound of cotton may travel before it gets into the warehouse at Manchester where it is re-examined, packed up and taken on again. Surely there could be some intermediate stage which would save these cotton goods being taken into the warehouse in Manchester and re-examined. Every additional one-sixteenth of a penny makes the cost mount up. On the top of all this we are going to have dearer coal, and this will not help the Lancashire cotton trade. You cannot fix prices for Lancashire cotton goods or give some sort of dole to Lancashire cotton goods so that they can be exported by making the people in this country pay more. I am certain of that, and I believe that the President of the Board of Trade is aware of it, too. I think that the selling is excessively dear. You have far too many different merchant houses. It may be said that they are competing with each other. They are not really doing so, because one or two houses would save any number of agents. I believe that if we had fewer selling houses, fewer merchants and fewer middlemen, we might be able to get a very much lower cost of production.
There is the question of over-capitalisation. I understand that the Lord Privy Seal has that rabbit up his sleeve, and that the bankers are all squared. I always find bankers extremely difficult persons to square. Probably in the East there is the worst question of all in the enormous drop in the price of silver. The cotton trade in Lancashire, taking it back to 50 years ago, was built up on right lines. It was one man to one job. They put down a spinning mill, they spun certain types, and they went to another place and did the weaving and to another place and did the dyeing. That was all right in those days, but the cotton trade developed very fast, and then people came along to Lancashire and said, "Now we can see a saving straight away. We can do this more or less under one roof." When I happened to be in Mexico, I saw a cotton mill which was believed to be the largest in the world. It was all under one roof. The cotton goods were brought in in bale and the finished goods were sent out. So it can be seen what a huge saving there was in handling there. They, more
or less, have a monopoly in Mexico. They do not need so many agents, and the cost of selling is therefore very much reduced.
I should like to quote a few figures to show what has been happening in the East, and how extraordinarily grave the position is. In 1911, we had 62 per cent. of the exports of cotton goods to China, and Japan had 11 per cent. In 1927, which are the last figures that I have, and they will be worse now, we had 15.6 per cent. and the Japanese 69.2 per cent. That is a very serious state of affairs, and one that will be very hard to get the better of. Take the question of spindle comparison. The spindles in Great Britain in 1928 totalled 57,000,000 odd, in the United States of America, 35,000,000 odd, and in Japan 6,000,000 odd. Our consumption of cotton was 1,383,000 bales, the United States of America, with a far fewer spindles, 3,180,000 bales, and Japan 1,200,000 bales, nearly as much as ours, with about one-sixth of the number of spindles. One cause of that was that we were spinning much finer counts than the Japanese were spinning, but that was not the whole reason. The other reason was that they were running two shifts.
Two shifts is not a system that any of us want to introduce if we can possibly help it. I do not want people to have to go to work at 6 o'clock in the morning, if I can help it, but people would far rather go to work at 6 o'clock and have a full day's work, than have no work at all and draw the dole. I am certain that the people of Lancashire would gladly go to work at 6 o'clock until 6 p.m. if they could have a full week's work. [An HON. MEMBER: "why not make it from 6 a.m. until 5.30 p.m., as it used to be?"] I am thinking how to get in the two shifts and I understand that it would save 3 per cent. If a saving of 3 per cent. will make the difference between having work and not having work, we ought to consider it.

Mr. PERRY: In regard to the point that the hon. Member is raising, how many of the finest and best equipped mills in the world, in Japan, have been built by Lancashire firms?

Sir N. STEWART SANDEMAN: That has nothing to do with the point. They probably buy machinery in this country.

Mr. PERRY: Those mills are now using British Empire cotton, and capturing the Indian market.

Sir N. STEWART SANDEMAN: My point is, that they are running two shifts. Of course, I am not at all keen that they should capture our trade, and I am trying to explain that we must look for every possible avenue by which we can cut down our cost of production. I am told by reliable people in Lancashire that the saving on a two-shift system would be about 2½ per cent. If we were running full-time, we should run our machinery down in half the time, which would mean new machinery, and any practical man knows that from new machinery one gets more efficiency and better work. If I am asked what I would do to get things going along better, I would at once go in for vertical combines. I am certain that horizontal combines are apt to become watertight compartments: they hold the price for themselves, and it does not seem to matter about anyone else. It is the whole people of Lancashire that I am concerned about. I want us to buy and sell our cotton goods as near to the consumer as possible, in the hands of one combine. A friend of mine in Lancashire came here, not long ago. He was in a bad temper. When I asked him what was wrong with him, he said: "I have been walking down Bond Street, and I saw some cloth in a shop window, priced 16s. 11d., and I sold it to them for 4s. 3d." Some of that money ought to have gone to the workers, and some of it ought to have gone into improving the machinery and the mill. [HON. MEMBERS: "Come over here."] I am not coming over there, I should be the last man to go to that side of the House. We know that the cost of shops in Bond Street is very high, and that they employ a great many people, but if I were running a cotton combine, I should have multiple shops, and I would let Bond Street buy my stuff if they wanted it.

Mr. ARTHUR LAW: I can find shops in Manchester displaying goods at equally extravagant prices.

Sir N. STEWART SANDEMAN: If they can get the silly fools to buy the goods, can you blame them for charging the price? I do not blame the shopkeepers, but I do blame the manufacturers for not being able to undercut
them. They could do it if they used their brains. The next thing I would do would be to protect the home market. I would make perfectly certain that no goods were coming in, even from Russia, in £1 driblets. I would not have these goods coming in at all. Last year, £10,000,000 worth of cotton goods came in.

Mr. BROTHERS: Will the hon. Member repeat that statement?

Sir N. STEWART SANDEMAN: I understand that last year £10,000,000 of cotton goods of one sort or another came into this country from abroad.

Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT: Including hosiery, it was £12,000,000 worth.

Sir N. STEWART SANDEMAN: So far as I can get an estimate, it would mean about 30,000 people in the cotton trade working full time if we manufactured the cotton goods that came in from abroad last year. My hon. Friends below the Gangway on this side of the House may think that 30,000 people working full time is not very much, but I wish it meant 30,000 of my people in Oldham and Middleton who were getting that employment; they would be glad enough of it. Whenever you begin to have a protected market and you are running full time, your own costs go down, while in the country that has been dumping goods the costs go up, and you are put in a better position for your export market. If we had had Safeguarding Duties, the Indian tariff would not have been put up against our goods, because we should have had something with which we could bargain with the Indian Government. At the present time we have absolutely nothing for bargaining purposes. If we were in a position to give some preferential tariff or otherwise, and we could say, "We are going to put a tax on something that you make—India ships a good deal of certain classes of manufactured goods to this country—the Indian Government would think twice before they put up the rate of tariff on cotton goods.
Another matter to which more attention should be given is that of Empire-grown cotton. I would like to see the day when every pound of cotton used in Lancashire came from our own Dominions and Dependencies. I believe that we should
then get very much cheaper cotton, and we should put our exchange in a very much better position in the United States. I would like to say a few words about another trade in Lancashire with which I happen to be familiar, and that is the artificial silk trade. I was speaking to a man who is very much interested in the artificial silk trade, and who has a great deal to do with the weavers and the merchants. Our conversation took place about Christmas time, and he remarked, "We do not know what is going to happen in regard to the Budget." [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I am telling hon. Members what he said. They may say that what he said is wrong, if they like, but he happens to be a very able business man, and he was telling me what he found. He said that people would not place orders for artificial silk until they knew exactly where they stood. If I were in the position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer I would waive my dignity and would say, "I am going to do so and so. "It is far better to know what is going to happen than to be in a state of wondering all the whole time. I hope that the President of the Board of Trade will very soon let us have the Report on the cotton trade. We are all anxiously awaiting it. The idea of appointing one Cabinet Minister after another to the Committee in order to make the Committee feel that it is very important, may have that effect, but the actual effect has been that we have not yet had the Report, and we have no idea when we are to have it. I hope that something will be done to hurry along the presentation of the Report.

Mr. PHILIP OLIVER: I have been much interested in the speech of the hon. Member for Middleton (Sir N Stewart Sandeman), one of my near neighbours. When he began his speech he must have been rather like that Lancashire friend of his, in a bad temper, because he started with what seemed to me a singularly unnecessary and ill-grounded attack upon the right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel). There was no reason for him to say that the right hon. Gentleman had been badly briefed. The right hon. Gentleman is not briefed; he does not require a brief. Anyone who has had the experience of the right hon. Gentleman and who knows Darwen and elsewhere in Lancashire, re-
quires no brief. The hon. Member then proceeded to complain, as did the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Hammersley), that the right hon. Gentleman was able to give no constructive proposals. I listened to the hon. Member for Middleton, as I listened to the hon. Member for Stockport, in order that his constructive proposals might bring enlightenment to me, but I heard nothing until the end of the hon. Member's speech, except what had been advocated by the right hon. Member for Darwen—amalgamations, vertical and horizontal. The hon. Member for Middleton laughed at my right hon. Friend, but he followed his example in that respect. I am willing that the hon. Member should laugh at the right hon. Gentleman provided he will continue to follow his example.
The only other constructive proposal which was not advocated by my right hon. Friend was, of course, Safeguarding. I am not going to follow the hon. Member for Middleton into that path, except to say that the ratio of our retained imports to our exports is 7.5 per cent., whereas before the War, in 1913, it was 5.7 per cent. The right hon. Member for Darwen has pointed out that so far as lineal yards are concerned, the imports into this country in 1913 were more than they are now, but I do not think that we solve the problem of our great export trade simply by concentrating on a comparatively minor question of Safeguarding. In regard to the export cotton trade, we have to consider the position of our various competitors. We have been told that our trade is something like 49 per cent. of the export trade of the world, that our next biggest competitor in the export trade of the world is Japan, with 16 per cent., that France comes next with 8 per cent., which leaves one-quarter of the export cotton trade of the world to be handled by the rest of the world, and of those competitors those that we have most to fear are, I think, Italy and Belgium.
I am going to please the hon. Member for Middleton by referring to Russia, because I want to say a few words about Russia. I am not troubled about the £1. Russian imports which came into this country last year, but there is one of our markets which is being seriously threatened by Russia, and that is the Persian market. There, we are face to.
face with a very considerable, and I think a very intense and growing competition from the Soviet Republic. Of the merchant houses in Manchester which deal with this market, during the last few years at least half have failed and gone out of existence. The larger and stronger houses remain, but the smaller houses have gone under. It does seem that in this market, which was a very lucrative and productive market for us, we are face to face with what our merchants believe to be an organised attack by Russia upon our Persian trade. On 14th September of last year Persian merchants were entertained at Moscow by the Soviet Government and evidently some arrangements were made at that conference. Although we can 6.0 p.m. not ask our Government to interfere with our trade in the way the Soviet Government interferes with Russian trade we can ask, I think, that the Board of Trade shall be especially vigilant in looking after our interests in the Persian markets, seeing that we are faced with this intense competition from Russia. After all, it is not Russia, or Italy or Belgium, that we have to fear most. It is Japan. Certainly a very great part of our troubles has arisen through the immense strides which have taken place in Japan. The right hon. Member for Darwen has pointed out the tremendous difference in the organisation of the industry in Japan as compared with the organisation here. He has pointed out the tremendous concentration in spinning and weaving and in the purchase and sale of the raw material and of the finished goods. Another remarkable thing is, that when you come to the finishing trades, the bleaching and dyeing, you find that in Japan, so far from these being coordinated and concentrated, there is an immense diversity of houses. In Lancashire the position is completely reversed.
The trade which is concentrated in the Lancashire area is spinning and weaving, and although there has been considerable amalgamation going on, it is still largely in the hands of small concerns. Some 70 per cent. of the spindles and 80 per cent. of the looms are held by small concerns, whereas when you get to the merchanting of the goods there is an infinite variety. It has been calculated in an interesting
paper read before the Royal. Statistical Society by Mr. Barnard and Mr. Hubert Ellinger that in Manchester there are no less than 740 houses exporting cotton goods, and that of these 740 one half have an average capital of £5,400. They are quite small concerns. Many of them are very expert and highly efficient, and for the normal Manchester trade they are perhaps the best units. But if we are competing with Japan, if we are to market our goods, if we are to take the risk of the market, then in addition to these small concerns we want something very much larger and more powerful. We want something in the nature of rationalisation. We have heard a great deal to-day about rationalisation as we have in every debate on commercial matters. I hope we are not going to bow down and worship rationalisation as we have worshipped other names we have invented.
Rationalisation can be carried too far. There is a story told of a man in Lancashire who was one of our great rationalisers. I had better call him Mr. So-and-so. A man was seen running down the street in a great hurry. He was asked, "What is the matter?," and he said, "Oh, Mr. So-and-so is ill." "Then I suppose you are running for the doctor?" "No," said the man, "we do not run for the doctor. We cut out the middleman. I am going for the undertaker." Rationalisation can be carried too far, but rationalisation and more rationalisation in the weaving, spinning and merchanting sections is very desirable. I should like to follow and amplify something which has been said from these benches and also by the hon. Member for Stockport with regard to the speech delivered by the Lord Privy Seal in Manchester on 10th January. It was an important speech delivered on an important occasion to an important audience. It was somewhat vague, and I think we are entitled to request further and more detailed information. These are the words in which the right hon. Gentleman concluded his speech:
Those, in the City who have been studying this matter are convinced that a number of our important industries must be fundamentally reorganised and modernised in order to produce at prices which will enable them to compete with the world. Industries which in the opinion of those advising the City conform to these requirements will receive the most sympathetic
consideration and the co-operation of the State in working out plans and finding the necessary finance.
I should like to know whether we can be told who it is that is advising the City in this matter. Have the Government, or any Government Department, taken any part? When it is suggested that we should amalgamate, is the amalgamation to be vertical or horizontal, or both? Do the Government, does the Lord Privy Seal, still think of amalgamation for merchanting also? Who is to take the initiative? Is the whole initiative to rest with Lancashire? There are firms which have absolutely no personal advantage in amalgamation at all. It is far better for them to remain out of amalgamation; but the good of the industry as a whole demands that they should come in. What are you going to do about good substantial and prosperous firms which are required to come into any amalgamation? Is it proposed to give them any incentive?
What is the City going to do? Is the City only going to float these amalgamations, with considerable commission, or is it really proposed that some additional finance is to be given to the industry? As to the Lord Privy Seal's speech, I find nothing new in it on this problem. That is really what we want to know, and I hope we shall get some sort of a reply. There are people who have been willing to promote amalgamations, people who have expressed to the City and to the Government their willingness to promote amalgamations. Yet, as far as I can make out, no concrete offer has been given to them different from what the City would have offered to similar proposals a year or two ago. I think we are entitled to ask for some further elaboration of this important pronouncement of the Lord Privy Seal. That is the chief point I want to stress. Undoubtedly there has been considerable pessimism, but it is only right to remember that the cotton trade has had its misfortunes before. There was a speech delivered by a great ornament of the Conservative party, Lord Randolph Churchill, in 1884. He said:
Your cotton trade is seriously sick. We are suffering from a trade depression extending as far back as 1874. Ten years of trade depression; and the most hopeful amongst our capitalists or artisans can discover no sign of revival.
After 10 years of trade depression the revival came. We have had 10 years of trade depression, and the revival will come again. I trust that the Government, whatever it may be, will do something to help and assist the cotton trade.

Mr. HERBERT GIBSON: This Debate was opened by the right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) with a very able speech. He always treats the House to a very lucid and clear speech, and lifts the subject far beyond the ordinary mundane level. He was followed by the hon. Member for Withington (Mr. Simon) who mentioned a policy which has been mentioned many times in connection with these Debates—mass production. Unless you have organised mass consumption along with organised mass production you are going to make the situation infinitely worse. That is the point which this House up to now has refused to face. We hear of the speeding up and the improvement of industry, but immediately we get to the consumer we do not get any light from hon. Members opposite. I take part in this Debate with a very heavy heart. I represent a division which has no less than 55.8 per cent. unemployed. It has troubled me enormously. The people of Mossley are going through a period of starvation, and they are facing the situation splendidly. There is not a town in the whole of England, Scotland or Wales, which has suffered the same intense unemployment as Mossley is suffering at the moment.
We have gone through hard times before, but this is the hardest period Mossley has ever experienced. Out of 28 mills, large and small, there was only one mill working full time a week ago. All the rest are on short time, or halftime. Nine concerns, representing 16 mills, are closed down indefinitely, and the remainder are on short time. We have come to this pass, that our chief exporting trade, cotton, which used to employ over 500,000 people and was at one time a national credit, is getting gradually into the position of being a national deficit. My first observation is this: We have in this industry 3,000 separate firms all struggling for existence in the face of a keen and highly organised competition abroad. In Mossley, where thousands of pounds have been made out of cotton, the people are being left high and dry at
the moment with nothing to sustain them beyond the enlargement of the unemployment pay given by the present Government. It is a very sad reflection on so-called private enterprise. It is nothing less than capitalism run riot; and how anybody on the benches opposite can defend a system like that in the manner in which it has been defended to-day I cannot understand. They say that we need State help and State assistance. And these are the people who are always scorning State assistance! They say, leave industry alone, let them fight their own way through.
What has been the chief remedy offered by tile employers? There is only one, and it has always been wage reduction. I would rather pin my faith to a definite reorganisation and improvement of method of production, which all the leading industries must face, out of the results of which there will be a fair return for all who depend upon the industry and give something to it in the way of service. One of the chief things that has been depressing the cotton trade has been the fact that there are so many middlemen in it who give little or nothing in service to this great industry. Reference has already been made to a case in which the cost of the finished product was 4s. 3d. and it was sold in London at 16s. 11d. Where is the difference going? It is going, in the main, to middlemen who could easily be eliminated, and, if we do not sooner or later take steps to eliminate them, we shall be eliminated as an industry. The direct cause of the immediate difficulty in Lancashire, briefly is this. Lancashire has always been an exporting county and the cotton trade is an exporting industry. Some 80 per cent. of our product has always been exported and four-fifths of the product is now being sent abroad. In 1913, Lancashire sent abroad 6,500,000,000 yards. Last year we sent abroad 4,000,000,000 yards. One-third of the trade has gone.
This is the point to notice—that the world consumption of cotton goods has increased by 10 per cent. in the same period during which we have lost one-third of our trade. Countries like Japan, Czechoslovakia, Italy and India have been increasing their trade in cotton goods, and, if anyone were to ask me
the main reason for the development of the trade in Japan, I should attribute it to the fact that in Japan they have organised the industry far better than we have done in this country. They have paid more attention to eliminating the middleman and, consequently, they can sell cheaper. That is one of the main reasons why Japan has forced and is forcing herself into the Indian market. One of the chief remedies recommended to us has been reorganisation. Nobody can feel more the need for reorganisation than we do on this side of the House. We realise that if the sections of this industry are so stubborn that they will not come together voluntarily, then they should be forced together—though I hate to use that term—because this is not a matter which concerns a few people only. It concerns the largest export trade of this country. It is Britain's industry and Britain's concern.
We have heard much use made of the word "rationalisation." Rationalisation is very fashionable at the moment, but I suppose that, in the last analysis, rationalisation means reorganisation with a view to the introduction of efficiency. No sensible person can object to the introduction of efficiency, and I have not heard one speaker on this side object to it in the case of this industry. We have always pressed for the introduction of efficiency but that word "rationalisation" has a sinister meaning to the worker in this country. To him it usually suggests that he may lose his job and, as self-preservation is one of the first laws of life, no man or woman looks kindly on a prospect like that. I believe this apprehension is not without justification, because, in the earlier period of industrial rationalisation, the introduction of machinery brought fabulous wealth to the manufacturers but no corresponding advantages to the workers who helped to create that wealth. There is a haunting fear on the part of the majority of workers in this country that those mistakes may be repeated, and that human life and human personality may again be cheated under rationalisation. I would remind the hon. Member for Withington (Mr. E. D. Simon) that, in Germany, the profits in the coal industry, the steel industry and the chemical trade have run into many millions under rationalisation, but it has been asserted that the German
workers have a lower standard of life than they had before the War. We do not want that to happen in this country because we love our country and want to see it as prosperous as ever it was. We do not want to see here the state of affairs which has resulted from rationalisation in Germany if it can possibly be helped. The aim of rationalisation should be that the community in general, and the workers in particular will share fully in the economic results achieved.
There are three aspects of this problem which require steadfast and sympathetic consideration. The first is the strain on the workers who are called upon to take part in the more speedy, more efficient, more mechanised system of production which rationalisation brings with it. The second is the redundant workers; and the third is the effect on the consumer who looks anxiously and not always hopefully for a fall in prices as a result of the economies effected by rationalisation. To whom are these unfortunate people to look but to the State? The displaced worker needs the help of the State to direct him into some other channels, and, in my humble opinion, a well-planned large-scale programme, with a Socialist outlook, extending over a number of years, offers the best hope for the workers of this country in the present situation. I ask the President of the Board of Trade to expedite the work of the committee which is considering this subject. In the past we in Lancashire have been inclined to be too quiet about our troubles. We shall have to emphasise our troubles more, and, I am sure I speak on behalf of all Lancashire Members, when I say that, as far as we are concerned, the Government will get no rest until some step has been taken towards giving this industry the consideration which it deserves.

Sir PHILIP CUNLIFFE-LISTER: It would not be difficult for anybody on this side of the House to score a debating point by contrasting the speeches which were made by Members of the present Government when they were in Opposition, with their action as a Government in relation to the cotton industry. It will be within the recollection of the House that on more than one occasion in the last Parliament, Debates were initiated on this subject by the then Opposition, their chief spokesman being
the present Secretary of State for War, in which the then Government were taunted with not having taken immediate and effective action. We were told that when Labour came in immediate and effective action would be taken. What is the immediate and effective action which has been taken by the Government in this matter? The Government have certainly not been harassed on this question by either of the sections of the Opposition. A considerable time has passed and the immediate and effective action which has been taken up to the present is the appointment of a committee—not even a Royal Commission as was promised in "Labour and the Nation." That committee has sat from time to time. It changes its personnel with almost alarming frequency, and the President of the Board of Trade, in the intervals of his occupations in this House and of his migrations to Geneva, is enabled from time to time to pay a visit to that committee. I am all in favour of the Government thinking, and I am all in favour of the Government calling to their assistance anybody who can help them to think constructively and consistently. But it hardly lies with those who, a year ago, were challenging us for not having taken immediate and effective action in regard to the cotton trade, to throw any bouquets at the present Government for the immediate and effective action which they have taken up to the present.
The truth of the matter, of course, is that on this, as on many other questions, hon. Members opposite are finding that it was very easy to make speeches in Opposition and at the General Election, as to what they would do and what changes they would bring over the face of this or that industry, but it is quite a different thing to-day. They certainly have succeeded in bringing considerable changes over a good many industries, but not for the better. All that, as say, was very easy when hon. Members were in Opposition or were fighting an Election, but as the President of the Board of Trade knows—and I do him the justice of saying that he was a good deal more moderate both in his attacks and in his promises than most of his colleagues—when hon. Members opposite got into office they found that the propositions which they had to face were a great deal more difficult than they had pretended
either to themselves or to those whom they induced to vote for them. They find now that it is not only difficult but impossible to fulfil the promises which they made or satisfy the hopes which they raised.
I do not wish to follow that point further, nor do I wish to hunt the Russian hare which was raised at the beginning of this Debate, beyond saying that I think many of the speakers have misunderstood the position in that respect. I have been informed—and I think the President of the Board of Trade will confirm the information—that the position is, not that there has been any large amount of importation of Russian goods into this country, but that Russian manufacturers of cotton goods were going to merchants with world-wide connections and saying, "We will quote you Russian goods at a very low price for you to sell in competition with English goods in neutral markets." That is what has been happening and I am told by Eastern merchants, with very large connections, that they were offered large quantities of Russian goods for sale in this way. It is perfectly reasonable for anyone on this side of the House to say that, in so far as we give credit to Russia, instead of making Russia pay cash for the goods which she buys, that credit can be used and is being used by Russia to compete with us in neutral markets.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) and other speakers have been pleased to point out that this is one of the industries for which a tariff can do nothing. In a comprehensive review of this industry, based upon the present position and the testimony of those who are responsible for the industry to-day—and who are certainly not prejudiced Protectionists—it would be very ill-advised to suppose that tariffs play no part. There is competition, and growing competition, and the House has probably noticed that, not a few men, who have been staunch Free Traders in the past, men who claim that they are the sons of Liberals and the grandsons of Liberals, are saying to-day that they have had to take a new and truer view of the situation, and that they are by no means content to see foreign competition coming into this country un-hampered.
In that review the right hon. Gentleman has to bear in mind another thing. The Manchester Chamber of Commerce passed a remarkable resolution asking that no change should be made in the existing duties. That was done, as I understand it, because they found—and this is undoubtedly the fact—that, so far from the existing duties which are imposed in this country being any handicap to them in the cotton trade, the protection in these industries was giving to the cotton trade a larger market, and making for the cotton trade new clients. That applied to tyres and to artificial silk also. For that reason, because the duties were giving more work to the cotton industry, the Manchester Chamber of Commerce were anxious that the duties should not be removed. No one knows better than the President of the Board of Trade that when it comes to making commercial treaties, Lancashire is always anxious to get as good terms as she can in foreign markets. The hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. H. Gibson) pointed out what a serious situation it was when the world consumption of cotton had increased and the exports of this country and the production of this country had gone down. Does that not convey any suggestion to his mind?
Consumption has increased and our export trade has gone down, because we are less able than we were to get into those markets where consumption to-day is not less, but greater than it was before. The President of the Board of Trade will find himself far better able to assist Lancashire to get into her former markets if he will consider the possibility of using some weapon of retaliation, some means of negotiation rather than giving way and offering a one-sided Tariff Truce. He will also do well to remember that the British Empire is a very good market for textile goods, and that the closer he can draw the Empire together in the rationalisation of its production and in a real partnership, the better chance there is for the exports of Lancashire within the whole field of the British Empire. In these circumstances, he would indeed be an inaccurate and wall-eyed man who said that tariffs played no part in Lancashire, and that nothing can be done by action to help Lancashire in this matter.
There are other problems which concern this industry. There is, of course, the problem of reorganisation. On this, I can say very little that is new, but I put it again to the House to-day, because I have been challenged on my attitude in the past when I was responsible, as the right hon. Gentleman now is; and I should be interested to learn whether the right hon. Gentleman, with the responsibilities of office upon him, takes a very different view of what is necessary in this industry from the view which I not only take to-day, but which I have expressed to the House on previous occasions, as to the lines on which I have tried to guide and help this industry in the past. It is very easy to talk about all the crazy finance that there was in this industry in former years. I sometimes wonder whether the facile critics of to-day, who so easily criticise the faulty finance and the undue optimism which there was in this industry, would have been quite such accurate prophets if they had made the speeches which they make to-day in 1919 and 1920 during the time of the boom. I think that the real truth was that nearly everybody was entirely misled, and nearly everybody misread the position, and I doubt whether those who criticise to-day would have been very much wiser if they had been in control of the position.
Without a doubt, it is necessary to write down capita], but you do not solve the problem of the cotton industry merely by writing down capital. Is there anything in the right hon. Gentleman's mind about finding Government finance? That is an important question, particularly in view of the speech of the Lord Privy Seal, which was quoted by an hon. Member on the Liberal benches. I hold a very definite view as to what is the function of the Government in finding finance in these cases. I am perfectly clear that it is no part of the business of the Government to find easier finance than people can get outside. No industry has any business to come to the Government and to say, "Give me finance on easier conditions than I can obtain elsewhere." If they do that, it means that they will discourage people from doing that very writing down of capital which is so necessary, and that creation of an efficient organisation which is necessary, and ought to be necessary, to command
capital. Therefore, the State should exact from industry, if it is to finance it, just as drastic terms for financial reconstruction and efficient organisation as any private investor would insist upon. I sincerely hope that that is the policy which the Government will pursue; I believe that that is their intention.
If it should happen that money is required for the re-construction of an industry, and that, owing to a shortage of credit, it is impossible for that industry, having set its house in order, to obtain the necessary capital, I think that a very good case may be made out for the use of Government credit; but I cannot conceive that, as a matter of fact, that is the position in the cotton industry to-day. I know a good deal about the negotiations for financing the Lancashire Cotton Corporation. I was asked, as I have no doubt the right hon. Gentleman has been asked, to find finance right and left for the cotton trade, but I always laid down the position which I am putting to the House now, and I found that, in fact, it was not necessary when credit was tighter than it is to-day. I found that it was quite unnecessary for the Government to advance the money. There was a criticism advanced by one of my hon. Friends, who said that the Lancashire Cotton Corporation was not the best kind of amalgamation, because it included a large number of the worst concerns which were in the lowest water, and did not include the more prosperous concerns. If it were possible for the Lancashire Cotton Corporation to obtain their finance to the full amount of their requirements at a time when credit conditions were stringent without recourse to the State, I should have thought that it was reasonably possible for other amalgamations, with greater resources of their own, to obtain private finance, provided, of course, that they are ready to put their house in order, that their management is efficient, and that their business is a sound and progressing one.
Therefore, I would put it to the President that, if Government finance be necessary, he should certainly insist upon just as drastic conditions as any private investor would. Financial reconstruction is not everything. You have to get much closer co-operation, and I believe that we are getting it. I see great signs of
advance in this industry. They want a much closer co-operation between all sections in the industry. I have never been in the cotton industry, but, with some acquaintance of other industries where one is accustomed to have the buying, manufacturing and selling in a single organisation, it was a most surprising thing to find in the cotton industry—at any rate as it used to be—how extraordinarily divorced the different sections are. Therefore, I would put as the object which any great amalgamation ought to seek to put before itself, efficient production which must include the full fruits of co-operation.
I do not think anyone would deny that in this industry in the past there has been an amazing lack of efficiency in the purchasing of raw cotton. They seem to me to have bought cotton as housewives buy tea, and yet the moment you get large-scale buying—[An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear!"] The hon. Member who said "Hear, hear!" will agree that it was found possible to get large-scale buying in the cotton industry without the intervention of a Government purchasing board. I agree that large-scale buying of raw material in cotton is a very wise thing, and I know that it is a subject to which these new amalgamations are devoting particular attention. In addition, you want the economical distribution of production between the different mills. I am told, and it is obvious as soon as it is put, that there has been a tremendous increase in cost in the past by a single mill shifting from type to type of manufacture. The whole balance of the mill is upset, and mills were not only producing lines for which their machinery was primarily unfitted, but producing endless varieties at excessive cost. Once you get combinations and aggregations of mills that are large enough for the purpose, you can distribute your contracts to much greater advantage between the different mills.
But have you nut to go a great deal further than that? I believe that this industry cannot rest satisfied by an efficient distribution of its production—I mean distribution among mills—as it exists to-day. I believe that it has to carry standardisation a great deal further, and here I agree with one or two other speakers that you can learn great lessons from Japan. It is obvious that
you can carry standardisation a long way in yarn, but is it not also certain that you can carry standardisation a great deal further than it has been carried in this country, not only in yarns but in cloths? I understand that in the Eastern markets the Japanese are selling standard cloths while we are selling hundreds and hundreds of different cloths almost of the same quality, varying in no essential way, varying only because this mill has taken an order from one merchant and that mill an order from another merchant. The result is that, we produce hundreds of different types where three or four would do. I should not give the House my own observations in this matter. I have always tried to get the best men in the trade to advise me, and I believe it is recognised among the ablest men in the trade that we can carry standardisation not only in yarn but in piece goods a great deal further than we have yet attempted to carry it in this country.
If that is done, we should solve half the question of price. What is beating us is price; and the commoner the type of cloth we are trying to sell, the more important does the element of price become. I believe that standardisation and price must go hand in hand, but is it not true that in order to get this standardisation we must have a much closer relationship between the manufacturer and the seller than we have had hitherto? Indeed, the manufacturer must, if necessary, control his own sales. We cannot get this standardisation and this mass production unless the manufacturer is in control of his own selling organisation. That does not mean manufacturers will not use the existing selling organisations, the existing merchants, all over the world, but if we are to get standardisation and to sell cheaply, as Japan is selling cheaply, we cannot allow lines of production to be dictated by 1,600 different merchants, as is done at the present time whenever any one of them, any merchant in India, comes and orders the smallest parcel. We have to achieve standardisation for common types in order to get this large output and these large and cheap sales. By doing that, we shall not be less able, but better able, to produce the higher classes of goods and the novelties and variety which the market requires.
My first condition was efficiency in the purchase of cotton; my second condition the economic distribution of manufacture amongst the mills; and the third condition the closest possible relationship between the production and the selling end of the business. I see great advances being made towards all those three objects. Now I put a fourth condition which, the House will agree, is absolutely essential, and that is co-operation between the employer and employed. There is no industry in which one can look for that with more certainty, because there is no industry where the workmen have in the past shown so great a faith in their own industry; and though I am not a Lancashire man or a Lancashire Member—I am of Yorkshire—I should like to re-echo all that has been said about the way in which Lancashire has been bearing her privations.
I do not believe anybody wants to see a further reduction of wages, but, on the contrary, to see wages increased and the arrival of better times; but while the workmen are entitled to ask, and to demand, efficient organisation on the lines I have indicated, and to say the mill-owners must set their house in order, yet, given that reorganisation, the machinery must be used to the best advantage. There must not be unnecessary restrictions on the use of that machinery; new machinery must be introduced wherever it is required. I am certain that in a county where the relations existing have been so good, and where so clear an understanding has existed as to the needs of this industry, we may look with confidence for co-operation between all sections in it, and I for my part do not think it necessary to ask the Government to do a very large number of things, because I believe that Lancashire knows better than anybody else what needs to be done in Lancashire, and if her people are given more chances they will work out their own salvation.

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. William Graham): I think I speak for all sections of the House, after a Debate so admirably conducted, and with a desire to ascertain the facts, when I say there will be no complaint that this subject has been raised again, having regard to the undoubted gravity of the conditions in Lancashire. I need not detain the House by recalling the
figures, because they have been put with substantial accuracy by hon. Members in different parts of the House. This is an industry which depends overwhelmingly on its export trade, and the broad simple fact is that whereas in pre-war times we exported about 6,700,000,000 linear yards of cotton goods, the total has fallen in the last period of one year for which there are complete figures to round about 3,800,000,000 linear yards. That is a very serious state of affairs. Side by side with that, and more particularly in recent times, there has been a great growth of unemployment in Lancashire. The latest figures indicate that there are 134,000 of these workers registered as unemployed. While it is true that there is some measure of comfort in the fact that 84,000 of them are registered as being temporarily unemployed, the figures are so serious that it would be better for all of us in no way to under-estimate their importance. I know also, on evidence tendered to me at the Board of Trade within recent times, that there is anxiety regarding the future of the industry, as to whether its markets have been permanently lost or can be partially recovered. The savings of enormous numbers of people have been seriously diminished, and the whole economic strength of the county seems to have been undermined. Therefore, no one standing at this Box with a responsibility towards industry and commerce would take other than a grave view of the situation.
I must at this stage indicate the position of the Cabinet Committee, the Sub-Committee of the Committee of Civil Research or of the Economic Advisory Council, as it is more accurately described, which was appointed very shortly after we came into office. It is quite proper that Members should ask what has happened, and what progress it has made, and whether it has suffered because of the change in personnel which was ultimately necessary. I regret in many ways that it was not possible for me to continue longer in the chairmanship of the Committee, but I do not think my right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) will complain of that, because part of my difficulty in remaining in that chair was due to the accumulation of problems in the coal mines industry, some of which grew up unexpectedly in this House. Originally,
the committee was composed of my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Alan Anderson, an eminent shipowner in this country, Mr. Joseph Jones, a member of the Yorkshire Miners' Federation, and Sir William McClintock, the eminent accountant. Thus there were two Cabinet Ministers, one trade unionist, and two men representative of industry and commerce, which I think on the whole, excluding the chairman, was a not inappropriate body for a task of that kind. It was only when it became perfectly clear that I could not continue the work personally that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who has a wide knowledge of Lancashire conditions, took my place. I think the change in personnel is perhaps not very important, because the essence of the case is whether there has been any delay in taking the evidence and whether there will be any delay in the presentation of the Report.
The Committee was appointed towards the end of July last year, but it is not easy to get evidence from, business men during August and September, and we had to wait until the end of the autumn before the witnesses were available; but they were asked to prepare their evidence at once, and many individuals and many bodies proceeded to do so; and when the autumn came the Committee commenced its sittings, and between that time and now a large volume of evidence has been taken. I need not tell the House that the documents submitted in a problem of such complexity require in themselves a very long time for consideration, and a much longer time for their detailed analysis. I hope the Committee wilt complete the taking of this evidence within a week or two at the outside, and that almost immediately afterwards it will prepare its report. That report will be submitted to the Government, and in due course the Government will make a statement to this House. While I admit that I have been in some respects optimistic regarding the time the Committee will take over its task, I do not think the period of four or five or six months—that is, in actual operation—is too much, having regard to the great volume of the evidence and to the importance of getting an accurate solution.

Sir H. SAMUEL: Will the Report be published?

Mr. GRAHAM: The Government have given no promise of that, for one very obvious reason. This is a sub-committee of the Committee of Civil Research, and a Cabinet Committee, and a large amount of the evidence has been taken on the express understanding that it will be regarded as confidential. In fact, much of the evidence would never have been obtained on any other basis. In the last Debate I indicated that it, would be our desire to give as complete a summary of the evidence as we properly could, but without binding myself to the exact form of that summary. I think the report may be expected at a very early date, and I can assure the House that every effort will be made by me to avoid any delay.
Other considerations which have been raised by hon. Members are of very great importance. First of all, it is suggested that the industry suffers to a 7.0 p.m. minor extent from some Russian goods which have been put upon the market in recent times and perhaps to a larger extent from the importation either of cotton yarns or of cotton piece goods. On both of these points in recent times I have given a good deal of information to the House, but it is perfectly clear that any imports from Russia under either head are the most infinitesimal character, and the figures of one pound sterling and so forth which have been given, which actually related rather to lace than to cotton in the strict sense, were worked out and they were within very narrow limits. That is all that the Board of Trade with its machinery and with the co-operation of the Customs authorities could ascertain. Hon. Members have suggested that cotton goods are reaching this country under other heads. I have asked them if they could supply the slightest information and I would immediately have it investigated, but so far, to the best of my knowledge, no concrete information, and indeed no information at all, has been submitted either to the Board of Trade or to the Customs. What appears to be more important, so far as I could ascertain, is the offer from Russia of certain cheap cotton goods, manufactured goods I understand, to wholesale and other houses in this country at admittedly very low rates. I gather the question before these houses was whether they should not accept these goods at all and refuse to
trade with Russia, in which case they would simply have been sent to other European centres and placed upon the market. I believe that, on balance of the considerations, a number of these houses decided to take certain quantities of these goods for re-export markets. In any case, that is a very small part of the problem of any import into this country.
Passing to more substantial considerations, it is true that, taking the last years, from 1926 to 1929 inclusive, because we have no complete figures beyond that, in those four years there has been an increase in the amount of cotton yarn imported into this country and also in the amount of cotton piece goods, but the figures are not as high as stated in the Debate. I gather hon. Members have included hosiery, but, in the strict class I mentioned, the cotton yarn and cotton piece goods, they do not appear to be very much more in the latest figure than about £6,500,000. Be the precise figure as it may and taking at the moment piece goods, they are not, as regards quantity and value, 2 per cent. in the one case and 5 per cent. in the other of the export trade. That is, as my right hon. Friend said, a very small part of the problem. Even if I were a Protectionist—which the House may have gathered I am not—I should not suggest that anything was to be gained by putting a tariff on those goods, or indeed, as my right hon. Friend suggested in his final speech for the Opposition, in using the retaliatory weapon of the tariff in other directions, because, frankly, I do not believe that the use of a weapon of that kind would increase the volume of British commerce one iota, and I am satisfied it would lead to such retaliation that it would seriously damage our commercial prestige. That is the position as regards the various classes of import goods.
Hon. Members, as anybody would expect in a Debate of this kind, have raised the question of the new Indian tariff. I shall not detain the House to-night by elaborate explanation, because the Secretary of State for India has dealt with the problem on the constitutional side, but I shall endeavour to bring certain information from the point of view of the Board of Trade. Of course, the broad facts are known, and,
taken over a period of years, they throw a fierce light upon the export problem in Lancashire. Before the War there was an ad valorem duty of 3½ per cent.; in 1917, that was increased to 7½ per cent.; in 1921, it was increased to 11 per cent. From the start there was a counter-vailing Excise of 3½ per cent. Originally, the duty was for revenue purposes, but then it took a protectionist character in 1917, which was increased in 1921. The Excise was abolished in 1925, and we come to the situation in 1930, when a new 15 per cent. ad valorem rate is proposed. The House will recollect that, some time in the late summer or the early autumn of last year, reference was made to a Customs Officer in India as to the expedience of replacing the ad valorem duty by specific duties, which of course raised very great alarm in Lancashire when it was known. The decision was against a general change over, but later there was proposed an increase to the 15 per cent. ad valorem which is the subject of this present Debate. We made from the very start all the representations which, as a Government, we could make. I want to assure the House, my right hon. Friend opposite, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen, and others speaking for their respective parties as well as interested friends on this side of the House, that I have been in constant touch with the industry all along since we took office, and, as the House is aware, in particular on the increase in the Indian tariff. We made these representations, and I think it is true to say that more complete representations were made than on any previous occasion. In the result, they suggested that, while they could not modify their tariff of 15 per cent., they would impose an additional tariff on foreign goods—

Sir H. SAMUEL: Who suggested it?

Mr. GRAHAM: It was suggested in India. An additional tariff on foreign goods involving a preference to this country, namely, that we should be left on the 15 per cent. basis and that a 20 per cent. rate or an additional 5 per cent. for a period of three years covering all classes of cotton piece goods should be applicable to those of foreign manufacture subject
to a minimum specific duty of 3½ annas per lb. on plain grey goods applicable again to foreign production.

Mr. TOUT: Is that within the 20 per cent.?

Mr. GRAHAM: It is a minimum specific duty of 3½ annas on that class of grey cloth.

Mr. BROTHERS: Or 15 per cent., whichever is the higher.

Mr. GRAHAM: 3½ annas or the ad valorem duty whichever is the higher.

Mr. TOUT: That is within the 20 per cent. The 3½ annas is in addition to the 15 per cent. on Lancashire.

Mr. GRAHAM: No, I understand that is a specific minimum, namely that 3½annas per lb. is a specific minimum on those plain grey goods. Since that time, it has been indicated that an amendment will be accepted in India which takes away that part of the preference to the British goods, and extends that 3½ annas per lb. to them. The result which we must recognise quite frankly in Debate to-night, is that it may modify the preference of 5 per cent. which we were to have got. I can only say to the House that the fullest representations were made, as indicated in replies to questions from various parts of the House, and, frankly, I do not think the Government can do more, because, as the House is well aware, there is the Indian Fiscal Autonomy Convention, which places this matter quite clearly within the competence and jurisdiction of the Indian Government. In addition to that, they have pointed out, first of all, that they have to raise additional revenue for Budget purposes, and in the second place, that they depend very largely on customs. The ad valorem duties generally were 15 per cent., whereas the cotton goods were only 11 per cent., and they are raising them to the general level. Finally, they plead the position of the cotton manufacturers in India, and the depression in the Bombay mills, and other reasons are indicated why they are quite unable to go back on the decision that they have reached. So I should gain nothing by suggesting to the House that, grave as the difficulty is and large as is the problem it presents to Lancashire, we can
make any further representation or carry our appeal beyond the stage to which it has already been carried.
May I turn to two other points bearing on the investigation of this committee and on what has been done in Lancashire at this stage to put its own house in order before I pass finally to the largest question of all, that is the future reorganisation of this industry. The House is aware that there is in existence a consultative body, representative of different sections of the industry, including the trade union interests, which within recent years has dealt with innumerable problems, such as standardisation of the technical processes, winding looms, and other questions within the competence of this committee. The committee has achieved useful results and will play its part until this more comprehensive committee's report is available which the Government hope to present. Side by side with that there has been at work, especially since the early part of last year, the Lancashire Cotton Corporation, and that aims for the time being at the amalgamation of those mills which are on the spinning side. At the present moment it has covered about 7,000,000 spindles in the American section. Indeed, without anticipating the merits of amalgamation, that has represented, with the aid of the Bank of England, an effort in Lancashire to reduce the far too large number of separate undertakings, to get rid of those separate boards of directors, and to be done with the duplication, and worse than duplication, of a good deal of Lancashire's energies.
It is no secret to-night to tell the House that the Lancashire Cotton Corporation has had to contend all along with the extreme individualism of the cotton industry, and has only been able to make what I suppose some of its pioneers may regard as rather disappointing progress. At all events, it has covered a fair part of the field, and it is continuing its work. The work of the Joint Committee and the work of the Lancashire Cotton Corporation, and indeed any other enterprises of that kind bearing directly or indirectly on this industry, are all material for the Sub-Committee of the Committee of Civil Research, which is considering the problem. I should like to remind the House also that not only is this the appropriate Committee for the purpose—and,
after all, our predecessors in office had a very powerful Committee, including many Cabinet Ministers, on the iron and steel industry—

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I do not want the right hon. Gentleman to think I am objecting to this Committee on Civil Research—I think it is excellent—but I drew attention to the fact that he was doing the very thing that we were told, when the party opposite was in opposition, was a futile thing to do.

Mr. GRAHAM: No; if I remember, there was a definite undertaking that immediately we would institute inquiries into the iron and steel industry and the cotton industry, and that was carried out to the letter, because in fact these two Committees were appointed before the conclusion of 1929. It is the appropriate Committee for this purpose. It has made the progress which I have described, and it has not duplicated the work of the Balfour Committee or any other body, because that material has been submitted to it very largely prepared, and it has facilitated its task.
I pass, in conclusion, to what is perhaps the most important question of all. Hon. Members will clearly recognise that I am in no way anticipating the Report of this Committee. I am not saying anything to-night in the way of a direction or hint to the Committee or anything of the kind; I am only expressing a view regarding these proposals for amalgamation and financial support which have been raised from time to time in this Debate. As regards finance, it has been indicated by the City that if sound schemes are prepared, they are willing to give the most sympathetic consideration. The extent to which the Bank of England is behind the Lancashire Cotton Corporation is already known, and I have not the least doubt that so long as need in the industry continues these facilities will be available.
The real point is the future organisation of the Lancashire cotton industry. It is true, as hon. Members have pointed out, that you have here a remarkable segregation; that is, you have the original raw material, and then you have the spinning and the weaving, and finally the finishing trades, and to any outsider familiar with other great industries in this country it is remarkable that that separation should have survived such a
very strenuous time, and that it should be so very difficult, even with all the pressure on Lancashire within recent years, to find a bridge between one section and another. The extreme individualism of this county has been, of course, one of its great characteristics, but we find two hon. Members on the benches opposite, the hon. Member for Middleton (Sir N. Sandeman) and the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Hammersley) both emphasising, in the one case the importance of comprehensive amalgamation, and in the other the importance of vertical amalgamation—that is, going through the various processes of this industry from raw material to finished article—and directing attention to what is undoubtedly one of the biggest questions, namely, this gulf between the price of that article, leaving the industry, and the retail price at which it is sold over the counter to consumers in this country.
That is one of the most serious problems confronting, not only Great Britain, but, I believe, almost all the leading industrial countries in existing conditions. The great fall in raw materials, the fall in commodity prices, in the sense of production and wholesale disposal, and the great lag between that fall and the prices at which they are being sold to the consumer, has been intercepted by various forces that I dare not take time to describe to-night; but all these things leave one clear impression on my mind. I do not think this industry can escape comprehensive amalgamation, and I agree with the hon. Member, whether he puts amalgamation on a comprehensive basis or on a vertical basis, it must go through the various processes of this industry, because there are sections of the industry which financially and otherwise are in a better position than others. The finishing trades, for example, have been in a relatively better position than the other sections, and I suggest, in the gravity of conditions in Lancashire to-night, that it is idle for anyone of us, whatever may be our economic faith, to segregate those forces. This industry has got to be united if it is to stand together in the face of what may be fierce world competition and in the face of a determination to produce these cotton goods in permanent manufacture in other lands, and to replace the supplies that they
formerly took from us by the goods that they themselves can turn out. If that is the state of affairs, I think Lancashire will be forced to this comprehensive combination.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen raised this point in a previous Debate. He seems to regard it as inevitable, as all of us do on these benches, and then he indicated, as he has indicated before in regard to other industries, that it is necessary to protect the consumers in this process when industry moves on to that large-scale production from a smaller scale. I entirely agree. My right hon. Friend referred to two stages of industrial revolution. He said there was the industrial revolution of a century ago, when we passed from small-scale manufacture, very often in the individual home, to the factory, and now he says there is another industrial revolution going on in the introduction of all those processes of rationalisation, and combination, and so forth. But why did he stop there? There is a third revolution beyond that. Whenever we pass to these great amalgamations, we lead inevitably to the next problem, it may be the next industrial revolution, which I call public corporations. I ask my right hon. Friend and his colleagues to look a little ahead, and I will repeat the invitation that I gave on a previous occasion, if they look ahead that step further—the Floor of this House is narrow, and the welcome will be warm.

Dr. VERNON DAVIES: We owe a debt of gratitude to the Liberal party for initiating this Debate on the cotton industry. When I saw that Motion down, I felt happy that the extremely grave position of Lancashire was at last going to be put before the Members of this House. But I must confess that during the Debate I have been woefully disappointed. It has seemed to me as if we had a patient in extremis—almost at the point of death—and a number of hon. Members of this House have got up, one after the other, trying to diagnose what is the matter with the patient, and in the meantime the poor patient is dying, and almost dead. We have had suggestions of vertical combinations, amalgamations, this, that, and the other, no two quite agreeing, and yet, when all is said
and done what we have to consider in this House is that we are up against one of the most important and vital problems affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Lancashire.
They are not concerned with your amalgamations, or your vertical combinations. What they say is this: "For the last nine years we have gradually but surely lost every penny piece of money that we have saved; we have had short time; we have watched oar industry gradually but surely decaying; we have noticed mills closing temporarily and then permanently; we have watched the machinery from those mills being taken out, sent abroad, and sold to our competitors; we have known of cotton mills worth at least £200,000, which could not be sold for £10,000; and in the meantime we, solid, hard-working, honest, decent Lancashire folk, who have given our best to our industry and our country, see our livelihood being taken away from us, and nothing is done."
The right hon. Gentleman, in an extremely lucid speech, such as we expect from him, has analysed the situation very fairly, but still he has simply come here as the final specialist, and he has told the House that the patient is suffering from so and so and so and so, and that the only thing we can do is to cut off his head. Because what does he mean? He says that Lancashire must amalgamate, that it must be forced to do it, and yet, on the other hand, he draws attention to the fact that it is the most individualistic county in the country. He says that Lancashire will have to come to it, but they have been doing it for nine or 10 years, and they are no nearer to a solution yet. How is the Lancashire Cotton Corporation getting its units in? By bankruptcy. Is he going to wait till all the mills are bankrupt before they can be forced into this Lancashire Cotton Corporation? What will happen to the people in the meantime? Is he going to sit on that bench and watch half a million people in Lancashire gradually starve? Will he watch them lose their means of livelihood? Will he see our largest export trade in this country absolutely wiped out? Is he going to see the revenue of this country so diminished that it will bring us from our present proud position into the condition of a secondary State?
Is that all they can do, to sit on that bench, appoint Committees, and say, "This is the decision made. You must do this, and in the course of time you will be forced to do it by economic circumstances"? [HON. MEMBERS: "What would you do?] I am not looking at this from a political point of view. The matter is too serious for that.[Laughter.] It is all very well for the hon. Member to make a sneering laugh. Does he think this is a political question, when we are dealing with half a million lives?

Mr. PYBUS: I heard the hon. Member denouncing the party opposite for doing nothing. I quite realise the gravity of the situation, and I was anxious to hear what was the hon. Member's remedy for it.

Dr. DAVIES: It is my hope that we should look at this question purely from an economic point of view, and I suggest to the Government that what they have before them is, first, to consider that they have the Lancashire man, who has been brought up and trained in a strict economic school, who has been a stern individualist, who has had his ups and downs, his periods of prosperity and of depression, and who has always come up again, but who has throughout been a strong individualist. We have to recognise also that we have lost a great deal of our export market because the cost of our production is too high. Therefore, with our limited market, we have had overproduction, and with this strong individualism in Lancashire, we have had each man outbidding the other, cutting prices, and cutting each other's throats, and each man has said, "Well, if we are both bleeding to death, I hope he will die first, and then perhaps the doctors can cure me at the last moment." This has been going on for nine years, and unless the Government step in—I am speaking solely for myself—and force the cotton trade to take action, they will gradually get the trade decaying, until ultimately they get what is called the survival of the fittest, when they may have a small industry, which will then hope, by the smallness of its units, and its large market, to make a profit and regain all that it has lost.
I suggest that Lancashire has shown itself to be very obstinate and even in
the parlous condition of the cotton industry to-day, you are only getting amalgamations by force. This kind of thing is going on week by week and ultimately the cotton trade is likely to be ruined. What concerns me most is what is going to happen to the Lancashire people who are out of work and who have not the slightest chance of getting work at the present time. Is the Socialist Government going to do nothing and are they going to say, "We must allow economic forces to have full play and trust to the principle of the survival of the fittest." I suggest that the Government ought to regard this as a most serious and urgent matter. I have heard several speakers state that although things in Lancashire are bad they are not so bad as they might be and practically they say, "Let us hope for the best and in course of time all these things will come right." [An HON. MEMBER: "Who said that?"] It has been said by more than one speaker

Mr. LANG: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us who made that statement?

Dr. DAVIES: I believe that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) said that the position in Lancashire is not desperate and I have heard other speakers in this Debate say that Lancashire was not in extremis and all that they wanted to do was, "To keep their pecker up." The Lancashire cotton trade is in an extremely serious position. What has happened during the last few weeks? Lancashire is now brought almost to the breaking point and if something is not done you will have something approaching a landslide and unemployment in Lancashire may go up to 200,000 or 250,000. This country cannot afford to allow that to happen, because we cannot afford to allow our principal export industry to be destroyed. Consequently, it is of vital importance that the Government should hurry up the work of the Committee which has been sitting for such a long time and when their report is issued, I think the Government should tell Lancashire that unless it puts its house in order and unless it does it quickly, the Government will have to step in, first of all on account of the serious position of the people and secondly on account of the State. I have lived among Lanca-
shire people myself and I am able to recognise their good and bad points, and I have no hesitation in saying that there is no man more obstinate in this country than the Lancashire cotton employer. I am anxious that the Committee which is investigating the state of the cotton industry should report as soon as possible and when we get their recommendations, the Government should say to Lancashire, "You must carry out these recommendations quickly and if you do not do so yourselves, we shall do it for you." [HON. MEMBERS: "Come over to this side."]
I am concerned to see that Lancashire people get work and not lose their livelihood. With regard to the Lancashire Cotton Corporation, that Corporation only represents about 7,000,000 spindles of mills whose shareholders have already lost nearly all their money. The only people who are going to get anything out of that Corporation are the banks. The danger is that when you get the Lancashire cotton trade going again under this Corporation, they will establish a cut-throat competition with the people who are not in their amalgamation and instead of the Corporation saving money by economy, they are more likely to lose money in the same way as has been done in the past. The Lancashire Cotton Corporation with their huge overhead expenses cannot compete with those firms outside the Corporation, and there can be no advantage by establishing a huge monopoly of this kind. The Government should take up this matter and they should not allow these people to sell goods at a loss in actual competition with those who are outside the Corporation. I implore the Government to recognise the extreme gravity of the position in the Lancashire cotton trade and not wait any longer before taking the matter in hand for the safety of the people of Lancashire, and to save the people from ruin.

Mr. BROTHERS: I am glad to have this opportunity of saying a few words about the situation in Lancashire. I agree with 75 per cent. of what was said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel), but there is about 25 per cent. of his speech with which I do not agree. With regard to what the right hon. Gentleman
said about the cost of producing cotton goods in India and Japan, I would like to say that I am quite satisfied, from personal investigation, that the actual wages cost per yard of cloth is equal if not more in India and Japan than it is in Lancashire. With regard to the question of rationalisation and amalgamation, hon. Members have asked what are the trade union leaders going to say on that point and are they going to face the situation. I have in my hand the quarterly report of our organisation which they are considering to-night and which I myself drafted. It says:
Schemes of amalgamation and rationalisation are being formulated and put into operation by those who have financial interests. This may result in an improvement due to the lowering of the cost of production, and be in the interests a both shareholders and workpeople. During the experimental and transitory period, the unemployment figures will be increased and the earning capacity of the operatives reduced.
That is bound to follow. Other speakers have made different points. Lancashire is sick, but Lancashire is not dead, and if I, as a Lancashire man, want a doctor to do me any good, I shall go to one with a brighter and more cheerful spirit than the hon. Member for Royton (Dr. Davies). In Lancashire, we believe that this country is doing itself a serious injury by stating that Lancashire is finished, and is not able to compete in the markets of the world, because other countries take advantage of our position when we parade that too openly. It has been said, "It is all very well to make statements but nobody has suggested a remedy for the present condition of things in Lancashire." We have been asked, is there any possible means of tackling this particular question and I contend that there is? We were able to deal with the cotton trade during the War, and the Government at that time set up a committee of control. The trustees of that committee are alive to-day, and they are looking after the money of the Cotton Control Board. If it was necessary to have a cotton control board to stipulate on what conditions the cotton mills should run and on what conditions the mills should stop, if that could be done during the War surely it could be done to-day. The men who have had that experience during the War were drawn from he employers, operatives and merchants and the Secre-
tary of the committee was Mr. Henderson. That committee has all this business at their finger ends and if they could function to-day they would be able to advise the Government as to what was necessary to be done in regard to the cotton trade.
At the present time, there is a sum of about £500,000 lying dormant in the funds of the Cotton Control Board. Why cannot some of that money be used to help to revive the cotton trade? I suggest to the President of the Board of Trade that he should recommend to the trustees of the Cotton Control Board that they should finance and select a trade deputation for the East. The hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Lang) suggested that we should try to persuade the people at home to wear more cotton goods, but what we want to do is to concentrate more on foreign countries, and let the people of other countries know the class of goods we are making. If we spent as much energy and time advocating our goods in foreign countries as we spend in advocating them at home, I believe we should have much better results than we have to-day. It is not correct to say that Lancashire people do not understand these problems, and that they are unwilling. The hon. Member for Royton says that the Lancashire people are obstinate people. We may be obstinate people, but we are not stupid people.

Dr. DAVIES: I was referring simply to the cotton spinners—the employers-—and not to the workpeople.

Mr. BROTHERS: I am not going to admit that even the employers are stupid—

Dr. DAVIES: Obstinate!

Mr. BROTHERS: I am not going to admit that the employers are stupid. I believe that the Lancashire employer and the Lancashire operative are quite as intelligent and quite as capable of managing their business as any other employer or operative in this country. The conditions of Lancashire to-day are just part of a world-wide condition. When I heard the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Hammersley) asking what this Government had done, and trying to shift the responsibility from that side of the House to this side, I thought I had never heard a weaker argument in all my life. If the
position of to-day were to be reversed, the conditions would be just as difficult, because they are world-wide conditions, and neither Protection nor Free Trade, nor any similar measure, will alter the situation that obtains in both Free Trade and Protectionist countries. It is a condition of economies far more deep-rooted than either Free Trade or Protection, because all countries have to contend with it.
We have been talking about rationalisation and the Cotton Corporation. In my view, the rationalisation should come as the result of the intervention of the Government. If it comes from those organisations which are only going to take the weak mills, we shall not be any better off than before. What we ought to do is to take the trade as a whole. There is another matter that must be considered. If you are going to rationalise, it means that the shareholders in those mills which are allowed to run are going to make a bigger profit, because the people who are compelled to go under cannot produce and compete with them; so that those people who are allowed to manufacture, or who can manufacture, at a profit, owing to rationalisation, should be levied on their profits in order to pay for the unemployed workers in those mills which are closed down.
It is said that Japan rationalises. Quite so. But what is the size of the cotton spinning and manufacturing trade of Japan or India as compared with Lancashire? There are as many spindles in Bolton or in Oldham as there are in the whole of India put together, and, when you are talking about rationalisation or amalgamation in Japan and in Lancashire, you have to consider the proportion with which you are dealing Japan is, comparatively speaking, a new nation in the cotton spinning sense, It is quite easy for a new nation to adapt itself and gain by the experience of old nations. Just as new countries can formulate an education system that we cannot get in this country, because we have grown up under certain conditions, so Lancashire cannot in a moment adapt itself to what I would term ideals. There is a difference between ideals and practicability, and, unless we as a Government and as a trade get the whole question under review, there will be no satisfactory solution.
I should like just to say a word to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in regard to the cost of social services. There is no doubt that the cost of social services is a very severe burden on the industry, but I am not going to ask the Minister of Health to curtail his activities, nor am I going to ask the Minister of Labour to curtail her activities, because I believe that social services are essential, and that it is money well spent. There is, however, the question as to how this charge is levied on the textile trade. Owing to the peculiarities of the textile trade, when there are periods of depression, part of the workpeople will be working 48 hours a week and part will be working 30 hours or less. In the weaving section during bad times they run down the beams, and it eventually comes about that the costs of production are relatively higher, because there are only two or three looms working where there ought to be four looms working.
It is the same in the spinning section. Carding workers are only working 30 or 40 hours a week, and never have a full week. That means that the employer may work his mill for one day, but he has to pay the full cost of the social services for one week by working that one day. The operative also has to pay the cost. In Lancashire at the moment this is a very serious matter. I am informed by a manufacturer on a large scale that the cost is 5¼d. per loom per week, equivalent to £1 per loom per year. I must content myself with saying that I am pleased to have had the opportunity of saying a word or two on this subject, though I feel that I have done myself justice. I am new to the business, and have been sitting here till I got nervous and did not want to speak at all, and now I do not know whether I have been wise in doing so.

Orders of the Day — WEST INDIES (SUGAR INDUSTRY).

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I propose, at this stage of the Debates on the Consolidated Fund Bill, to open a new subject, namely, the attitude of the Government towards the problem of another depressed British industry, namely, the sugar industry. It is perfectly clear that, just as the cotton industry has been adversely affected by tariffs, so the sugar industry in the British Empire, and par-
ticularly in the Crown Colonies, has been most detrimentally affected by the system, which has been developed in many countries of the world, of raising the price to the local consumer by means, not merely of protective duties, but of prohibitive duties, and thereby enabling surpluses over and above home requirements to be dumped below the cost of production in this, the one free market of the world. That is the first main cause of the terrible conditions with which the sugar-producing dependencies—I use that word advisedly—are faced to-day. Over and above that, however, there are two causes which have operated, in particular, this year, and which present to us a special crisis. Two things have happened since the present Government took office during the last 12 months which have resulted in a sudden and special blow to British Colonial sugar production. Those are the particularly favourable climatic season of 1929 in the Island of Cuba, the largest producer of sugar in the world, and the coming into full operation of—and I am going to use a rather unexpected expression—"P.O.J. 2878."
What is "P.O.J. 2878?" It is a new variety of sugar cane invented—I use that word as a term of art—by the scientists of Java a few years ago. It is a new variety of cane which, after three years, culminated last year in putting 30 per cent. on to the yield of sugar per acre in Java, which, after Cuba, is the second largest sugar producer in the world. On the 1st January of this year, therefore, there were two special causes, quite apart from general tariff causes, threatening the British sugar industry, and culminating in the present calendar year. What is the effect of these two special causes over and above the tariff causes? It is that, by the first January of this year, 1930, the stocks of sugar held in the world had increased by over 1,000,000 tons. The result has been a sensational fall in prices. It is difficult to foresee how long that fall in prices is going to persist. It is quite possible, and I have taken such steps as I can to go into the matter, that in this coming season neither Cuba nor Java will be producing the same quantities of sugar with which they have flooded the markets of the world during the last few months.
8.0 p.m.
The principal reason for my attack on the Government to-night is that they have absolutely failed to meet the existing emergency for this year. Following the reception, not the publication, of the Olivier Report, they have produced derisory proposals in regard to the financing—I shall not call it the financing, but the bailing out, the half bailing out after bankruptcy had taken place, of the British sugar growing colonies in the year 1931–32 but they are doing nothing to meet the situation presented to them by the Reports of Sir Francis Watts and Lord Olivier on 31st December, 1929. They have produced absolutely nothing to deal with the situation this year, and their proposals for the future are mockery. Why have they refused to act in a single particular on the recommendations of their own late Secretary of State for the Colonies, their own late Cabinet colleague, Lord Olivier? He was specially selected by the Labour party to go out and report on the situation, and he reported that there was a grave emergency. So great was the emergency that it led him to send a 2,000 words telegram to the Government on 31st December. That telegram was published only last week. The Government took no action upon that telegram; they took no notice of Lord Olivier's recommendation, and they have done nothing and are doing nothing to deal with a situation which is really grave. Let me read the first words of the telegram from Lord Olivier to Lord Passfield. It is dated from Jamaica on 31st December:
The gravity of the position now immediately embarrassing the West Indian sugar industry as ascertained by us and possible loss of preference further threatening its virtual extinction"—
I stress those words—
impel us to convey to you by telegram this preliminary report as to the effect of our general finding. Timely appreciation of true situation by His Majesty's Government appears to us essential with a view to early alleviation of the immediate conditions, and consideration of effective Imperial policy. Present costs on reasonably efficient production, excluding any provision for profit, depreciation maintenance or progressive improvement, exceed preferential markets by amounts up to £2 a ton. Barbados, Antigua, St. Kitts, British Guiana, now suffering diminution of trade and three latter serious diminution of revenue. St. Lucia expects increased deficit on year's
finance. Jamaica Legislature already forced to adopt urgency measures to maintain local industry.
I shall not quote any more. That is all as to the necessity for immediate action. What was the action of the Government? In spite of being pressed in another place, in spite of being pressed by the Colonial Governments and in this House, His Majesty's Government have refused to publish any documents. We all know the reason why. It is because the peasantry, the labourers and the sugar planters of the British Colonies are to be sacrificed to the pride and prejudice of one man and one man only, and that is the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. We know that the Colonial Office have done their best. We know that the right hon. Gentleman is tied religiously to a doctrine and a dogma. We know that the present Chancellor of the Exchequer would rather see the people over whom he says that he is one of the trustees—would rather see them starve than abate one jot or tittle of the religious faith that he has in the universality of free imports or of his hatred of Imperial Preference.
The fact is that the cane farmers of Mauritius and Trinidad are at the mercy of a doctrinaire. The doctrinaire views of the Chancellor of the Exchequer are threatening an industry on which thousands are dependent for a livelihood in the tropical dependencies of the Empire. When the present Chancellor of the Exchequer was in office before he took the earliest opportunity, on introducing his Budget, of deriding Imperial Preference, and particularly the preference on sugar, and he said that it went merely to swell the profits of the West Indian planters. What are the facts? Let us examine the situation as it affects an island like Trinidad. Forty-eight per cent. of the sugar grown in Trinidad is grown by some 18,000 negroes, apart from a few East Indians who were brought to the island as indentured labourers and decided to settle there.
In the islands of St. Kitts and Antigua the main producers of sugar are small negro proprietors. Who are these negroes? They are not people who live in these islands because the islands were the home of their ancestors. They were forced there against their will as slaves. Acting in the interests of humanity this House decided that slavery should cease.
It compensated the owners for the loss of their property in slaves, and it said that in future the ex-slaves must learn to labour on their own account. Lands were divided up and given to them. What are the Government doing to-day? They are simply leaving the descendants of those slaves at the mercy of markets, without raising one finger to help them, without carrying out the obligations that we have in respect of dependencies to exercise trusteeship for these people.
I have quoted the example of Trinidad. The growers there have to sell their sugar here or in Canada. From other countries they are excluded by hostile tariffs. The Government offer them no help, no dole, no insurance scheme. They are left without any hope or help. At the same time the Government claim to be the trustees of these people. Let us take Mauritius. There 43 per cent. of the Canes are grown by East Indian settlers from Madras and the Malabar coast, and 57 per cent. by French planters, descendants of the French inhabitants of Mauritius, that star and key of the Indian Ocean which was so formidable to us in the days of the wars between France and England in harassing the trade of our East Indian merchantmen and fell to us as a prize of war in the great Napoleonic contest. These French planters are now under the British flag, loyal to the British Government. Have we no responsibility in this House for seeing that these people have an opportunity to make a decent livelihood? I think we have, just as much as in regard to the natives of Kenya or any other protectorate or colony.
The Labour party boasts that it has a special interest in the native races, in the negro peoples of the Empire. It is up to them to make good their claim by doing something. What have we heard from the Government in response to this clear recommendation from Lord Olivier for a definite statement by the Government that it will maintain the existing rate of preference and make it the same rate as that given by Canada to the West Indies? In face of that recommendation—silence and a suggestion that the planters should fall back on making the industry more efficient. Let me examine that question of efficiency. With the exception of Cuba and Java there is no doubt whatever, judging by these two Reports, that the British West Indies and
Mauritius produce sugar cheaper than any countries in the world, that their industries are well conducted, that their labour conditions are better than those of their chief competitors, that the machinery is up to date, and that the scientific work now in progress is of a high quality.
What is the answer given by the Secretary for the Colonies to Lord Olivier in regard to further aid in scientific direction? I am the very first to welcome any announcement by any Government to the effect that it will devote more money and more interest to scientific work. We have in this respect a terrible leeway of past neglect and indifference to make up. It is not very easy to build up the scientific development of alternative ideas, still less the scientific improvement of the sugar industry in the West Indies or in Mauritius without very long team work and very large expenditure. Let us look at the broad facts. Admittedly, science is one of the causes why the British West Indies and Mauritius are so hit at present. The fact is that in Java, the second producing country in the world in sugar, they began to develop the great station, which I have had the privilege of visiting, in the year 1885. For 45 years they have been building up an ever bigger organisation of scientific endeavour. They now spend approximately £100,000 a year upon one station alone devoted to one industry. It is a colossal organisation built up gradually and slowly, and it is a most remarkable organisation.
Take this new cane which has had this effect this year of suddenly expanding the production of Java to such an extent. It took five years to breed that cane, and it is breeding of a kind which we rarely have effected even in this country, let alone in the tropical Empire. where hitherto we have been so understaffed in scientific work and in all our scientific endeavours. The new J.O.J. 2878 is the result not of the type of plant cane breeding which we have gone in for, namely, selection of the best type of cane by a process of trial of error, but is the result of pure laboratory work in thinking out beforehand the marriages and cross-marriages on the most up-to-date Mendelian lines of the type of cane which will suit Java climatic and cultural conditions best, and which will be unsuited to introduction in any other conditions.
It is one of the most remarkable achievements I have ever seen. One of the ultimate parents of this cane is not a sugar cane at all, but a wild reed in the marshes in Java married to a sugar cane in order to give resistance and speed of growth to a sugar cane grown in the climatic conditions of Java. Before you can produce a cane of that kind in the British West Indian Colonies or in Mauritius, you have to devote not five but 10 years to building up your organisation, and it is idle for the Secretary of State to say that science can be applied here and now to the West Indies to remedy the position.
It has been difficult enough under successive Governments to get the money for the Trinidad College, which is to feed not merely the West Indies but the whole British Empire with the first possible trainees in scientific agriculture. It is not until you have had passing through Trinidad for many years a sufficient number of men of first-class scientific ability that you can say we have attained anything like a level position with what the Dutch have attained in Java in the culture of all these tropical plants. If it had not been for the Empire Marketing Board, created by the last Government, there would not have been even to-day the chance there is for the development of the application of science to the problems of tropical development and competition with our competitors. When I went to the Colonial Office, with the exception of one civil servant, who by accident was a good scientist, there was no one in the office to whom one could turn on any scientific problem. There was no organisation for dealing with agriculture, medicine, medical research or education. There was nothing of that kind.
Look at history. It was not until Mr. Chamberlain persuaded the House to make a grant for the Imperial development of agriculture in the West Indies that there was any agricultural department at all in the West Indies, or agriculture in the Colonial and dependent Empire had any show or any support at all. It is only in the last two or three years, notably during the the period of office of the last Government, that there has been any real move on the part of this country to make up the great lee-
way and the appalling deficiency in our Colonial Office at home, and in our Colonial Empire overseas in science and it is impossible in face of the crisis that faces the West Indian Colonies, to turn round and say, "You ought to have applied more science earlier." It is absolutely essential to make it clear to the world that it is not the West Indies' fault. They are controlled by the House and by the Colonial Office. The whole direction of affairs for a long time past has neglected this side of the work, and this side of opportunity, and it is only recently that they have had a chance to get forward in such directions and it must take time for this to develop.
May I say a few words as to the exact way in which this present crisis is operating. It is operating, of course, as the result of the sudden increase in the production of sugar in the world. I have given the particular reason but, over and above that, there is the basic reason. that most of the countries of the world—quite frankly including our own self-governing Dominions—are by high Protection artificially subsidising and maintaining a sugar industry. Take Czechoslovakia, about the biggest producer of beet sugar. The internal price of sugar there is about 25s. a cwt., kept at that price by a prohibitive tariff. That enables them to supply the whole of the home market at that price and to export at 10s. a cwt. What is the position in Cuba? Cuba has the inestimable advantage of a preference in the great markets of the United States. As the House knows, the system means that if you are a sugar planter in Porto Rico Haiti or the Philippines you are treated as part of the United States. If you are in any one of these three dependencies of the United States you are part of the mother country and sugar comes in absolutely free. If you are a Cuban producer you come in on payment of a duty, but that duty is very considerably lower than the duty imposed on sugar coming from any other country in the world. There is a tariff in the United States which absolutely prohibits sugar from the British islands getting in free, and Cuba gets its preference. What is the result? In the last few weeks Cuba has been able to quote a price for a block of 100,000 tons of sugar far below
her cost of production, because she can make up in America losses on that bulk of 100,000 tons.
Take the example of the French colonies! It so happens that the British West Indian islands are sandwiched in between the French islands. They have the melancholy spectacle in the British islands of seeing great prosperity in the adjoining French islands, because France admits Martinique sugar free whereas she puts a prohibitive protective duty on the sugar coming from our islands. Similarly, in regard to Mauritius, the island of Réunion is alongside of it. I was informed to-day that a planter of Réunion made a statement that there are many planters in Réunion with a million francs to their credit at this moment owing to the advantage the French give to the Réunion sugar industry whereas ours is faced with ruin. Those are the facts of the world.
You have to face the fact that we are attempting to run, on the basis of free commerce, an Empire and a series of Colonial dependencies in, and mixed up with, a highly protective world. It is a pretty ugly spectacle looked at it from the point of view of the British Colonies and of the natives in those colonies Therefore, I say the Government must do something. They have rejected all the proposals made in the reports; every single proposal has been turned down by them. Have they considered the question alone in regard to the carry over for this year? Let us take Mauritius. The Imperial Government gave a loan on easy terms because a hurricane destroyed the sugar crop. Every penny of that loan has been paid back. In 1903, a disease wiped out all their animal transport. The Imperial Government gave them a loan to replace it by mechanical transport, and every penny has been paid back. Are they willing, if they are not prepared to implement any of the proposals of Lord Olivier or of Sir Francis Watts, to give any help?
I regret that it is my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies who is to reply to me to-night. I know that he is anxious to do his best for the colonies and that he knows what distress and misery is going to be brought about to the peasantry and the labourers of the West Indies and of Mauritius by
the inaction of the Government of which he is a member. He knows how they will contrast the recommendations of Lord Olivier, whom they knew as Governor and as a leading member of the Labour party, his clear utterances on this subject, with the action of the present Government. All I can say is that I know they will not blame the hon. Gentleman, but they will blame, and they will rightly blame, throughout the length and breadth of the Empire, one man, and one man only, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of Great Britain—little Englander all through his history, narrow-minded dogmatist; who imagines that he stands in the same relation to Cobden as Lenin does to Karl Marx.

Dr. MORGAN: We have had from the right hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Ormsby-Gore) a pathetic picture of Colonial Office administration coupled with a rather unscrupulous attack on the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I hope in the few minutes which I am going to address the House to ask hon. Members to look at the picture from another aspect. The right hon. Member for Stafford made a very excellent speech, but I think his diagnosis is wrong. He went a long way round to say that the cause of the present sugar crisis was really world over-production of sugar. He told us, first of all, that dumping was one of the main causes of the sugar crisis. Was dumping the cause in 1896, 1897, and in 1902 when there were similar crises in the West Indian sugar industry? That is a wrong step in his diagnosis. He told the House that Cuban over-production was a great cause of the present situation in the West Indies. He led the House to believe that Cuba benefits from the present United States tariff on sugar. I am not sure about that. If he goes and asks the Haitian labourers and West Indian labourers working on the plantations, he will find a very different story being told. Why should the right hon. Member lead the House to think of this benefit without telling the other side of the picture? He did not mention the other side of the picture.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I think I said in the earlier part of my speech that the West Indian conditions in regard to labour as set out in the Olivier Report, that the British West Indian rate of
wages was double that of Java and superior to that of Cuba, and that undoubtedly bad conditions of labour are one of the reasons why our British production is being knocked out.

Dr. MORGAN: I was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that, but he was dealing with the tariff issue at the time and did not stress the point that bad conditions of labour have a very great effect on the present world over-production of sugar. It is not only that the conditions of labour in Cuban estates is bad. The state of Cuba itself is in very great financial straits. It is overburdened with American debt. American capital has been flooded into the sugar industry in Cuba, and they are hopelessly in debt and do not know which way to turn in order to find the necessary interest to pay off the debt. The cost-of-living figure M. Cuba to-day is 196, as compared with the cost-of-living figure in the United States of 140, and in the United Kingdom of 142. Therefore, the cost of living for Cuban people has gone up as a result of the tariff conditions. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned a good many things in connection with the labourers in the Colonies and said that they were being sacrificed to one man. He said that that one man would rather see them starve. What did he do when he was at the Colonial Office? He has had four years and a half of it. Let us look at the picture.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: We maintained preferences.

Dr. MORGAN: I am speaking from the point of view of the West Indian labourer. I am coming to your preference point directly. Take the island of Barbados. What were the conditions of labourers there during the time that he was in office and maintaining preferences and when he tells us that the sugar industry was in a healthy and vigorous state? The wages of the labourers there when the profit upon sugar varied from £3 to £10 a ton—[Interruption.] Oh, yes, in 1920 they were getting it. I know who are the sugar planters in the Barbados and the West Indies, and I know what I am talking about. In certain years, they were making profits varying from £3 to £10 per ton. Now the loss is £2 to £3 a ton. What was the condition of the labourers in the
years when the profits were being made? The labourers' conditions have been worsened as a result of the War. Their wages have remained the same, while the cost of living has gone up. The women in the cane fields who, when they go to work, have to carry their babies with them, are getting from 6d. to 1s. a day, while the labourers are getting from 1s, to 2s. a day.
What is the infant mortality rate in the Colony of Barbados, a rich colony, which asks for tourists, a Colony which is regarded as the centre of the convalescent in the West Indies, with a reserve fund of £100,000, an annual revenue of £500,000, and a surplus of £30,000 for its special fund? The infantile mortality is 331 per 1,000. One child in every three dies. That happens in a Colony which has £100,000 in its reserve fund. What does it spend on infant welfare? How many maternity clinics were there in that Colony when the right hon. Member for Stafford was at the Colonial Office? There was one clinic, with a Government grant of £150, although 1,900 births took place there. Now, the right hon. Gentleman comes here and tells us that the conditions of the West Indian labourers are very bad because of one man only. The right hon. Gentleman cannot escape his own responsibility for the maladministration of past years. The illegitimate birth rate in this island, after 100 years of British administration and of the Christian religion, stands to-day at from 67 to 72 per cent. And there is an official majority there, and it is a Crown Colony.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: To which Colony is the hon. Member referring?

Dr. MORGAN: I am referring to Barbados, as a typical Colony.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I particularly did not mention Barbados, because it is not a Crown Colony. There is not an official majority. We are not responsible for Barbados, in the same way that we are responsible for Trinidad. We have no power to dispose of any of the revenues of Barbados, there being a Speaker and a House of Assembly, in which the Government are not themselves represented.

Dr. MORGAN: With all his experience at the Colonial Office the right hon. Gentleman is giving us information which is quite wrong. I have been to the Island of Barbados.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: So have I.

Dr. MORGAN: But the right hon. Gentleman's visit was a temporary visit. I lived in the West Indies for 20 years, from my boyhood.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The hon. Member surely does not dispute that there is no Crown Colony Government in Barbados? There is no official majority. There is an entirely elective House, which has complete control of the Budget.

Dr. MORGAN: I repeat that, despite his experience at the Colonial Office, the right hon. Gentleman is giving the House inaccurate information. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Yes, and I am here to correct him. [Interruption.] I hope hon. Members will give me a chance on a subject of which I know something. Wait until I have the Parliamentary experience of the right. hon. Member for Stafford. There are two Houses in the Island of Barbados. It is a Crown Colony. The people of Barbados consider that it is a Crown Colony. The other islands in the West Indies look upon Barbados as a Crown Colony. The Colonial Office are responsible for the finances, and they can veto the spending of money.

Mr. ORMSY-GORE: indicated dissent.

Dr. MORGAN: Certainly, it has been done. I repeat that there are two Houses in Barbados, a Lower House and a Higher House. They are both undemocratic. One House is mainly elected on a very limited franchise, a property franchise, so that the poor labourer has no chance. The second House is partly elected and partly nominated, with an official majority. Do not come here and tell us that it is not a Crown Colony and that there is not an official majority. There is. There ought to be a decent uniform system of administration in the West Indies; a system of Federation. We ought to get together and see if we cannot send out another Commission to deal not with one particular subject but with the whole situation in the West Indies. They are ripe for self-government. They want federation. Barbados is still a Crown Colony.
Let me return to the subject of the illegitimate birth rate, which amounts to from 67 to 72 per cent., so that two out of every three of the population of that Colony are illegitimate. Those are the conditions that existed in the Colony during the administration of the right hon. Gentleman, in the most successful year of the sugar industry.
This matter can be looked upon from many points of view—from the point of view of the British taxpayer, the British consumer, the British producer, the British investor, the West Indian sugar planter and the West Indian black labourer and the West Indian citizen. Surely some equitable ground can be found between these various interests on which we might come to a settlement. There can be no doubt about the dreadful economic situation in certain of the islands—not all. It is worse in some islands than in others. Some of the islands, like Barbados, St. Kitts and Antigua, are wholly dependent upon sugar; others only partially dependent upon sugar, and some not at all. There can be no doubt that the present situation has been aggravated and stimulated by dumping, bounties, subsidies, Protection and tariffs which are so rampant throughout the world. There is great need for reorganisation of the sugar industry, with large scale production, even on individualistic lines. The planters in boom years made profits, and said nothing. In lean years they come to the British taxpayer and expect the British taxpayer to foot the bill. They make no arrangements for long-term production, no collective insurance, no reserve fund, no dividend equalisation, no equalisation of years. Supported by the Colonial Office and the local Government, they take no thought for to-morrow. The labourers are the worst hit all the time. The middle classes and the upper classes are not so much touched. In Barbados the upper classes have British investments which bring into the Colony £150,000 a year, and the middle classes have remittances which amount to £100,000 a year, but the poor labourers have no reserves and on their low wages they cannot save. It is for these poor people and not on behalf of the planters, the middle classes or the upper classes, but for the sake of the people who correspond to the people in
my Division who elected me to Parliament, the black proletariat, that I am making an appeal to the Colonial Office to see if they cannot adopt some of the recommendations of Lord Olivier's Commission. The Conservative opposition have no policy in regard to this problem. The right hon. Member for Stafford did not tell us what his policy is for dealing with the situation, either from the point of view of the present or of the future or with the object of preventing the recurring periodic crises in the sugar industry. The question is not one of Protection or Free Trade.
I want to come to the Report itself. It is a very masterly analysis of the economic situation. It is a very statesmanlike document, and almost every paragraph in it is thought stimulating and refreshing. I am very sorry it is restricted to sugar. Lord Olivier is Labour to the backbone, and he is one of the four individuals in Great Britain who I regard as an authority on conditions in the West Indies. Yet the Government, following the bad precedent of "safety first" adopted by the last Government, is not going to adopt any of the recommendations of that Report. I want to suggest to the Government that the matter might be reconsidered. I feel sure that they are sympathetic, but sympathy is not a substitute for statesmanship. The Labour Government has a unique opportunity of leaving its mark on Colonial policy, especially West Indian policy, but it looks like throwing the opportunity away. Here was a chance of giving a definite democratic twist, according to the well-known views of the Government and its written programme. What it does is to give a subsidy in the true old capitalistic Tory way. The Tories did that, but it was of no use, and I suggest that it would be a good thing for the Government to adopt the import board scheme suggested by Lord Olivier.
I want to stress that point in the few remaining minutes which are left to me. An import board scheme is one of the recommendations of Lord Olivier's Commission. They recommended a statutory single purchasing agency to deal with what they call Imperial sugar. I think they must mean Crown Colony sugar, because I do not think they meant to include the purchase of Canadian sugar.
That recommendation has not been accepted. Why? It has not been accepted principally on the ground of cost, and yet, as Lord Olivier very ably pointed out, it might conceivably be cheaper in the long run to have this import board and finance it than to give a grant equal to 7½ per cent. on the money borrowed. I suggest to the Government that they should deal with the problem in that way, instead of making a subsidy of £300,000 to the West Indies—and some of the Islands like the Windward Islands do not need it as they have reserve funds and no sugar industry.
Let me at this point make the observation that in Great Britain we have a capital debt of £149 per head of population. I have gone through the figures for the West Indies very carefully and I find that their debt per head varies from £6 and £7 to 10s. Yet these colonies, with this small debt per head, are coming to us with our debt of £149 per head to help them; and the British taxpayer, the poor people in my constituency, are entitled to ask why we with such a heavy debt per head should be asked to help people who have a much smaller debt than our own, and who in certain cases have reserve funds. That may be an extraordinary argument, but it has been used in my own constituency. I suggest that the Government should hand this subsidy of £300,000 to the import board as a nucleus on their fund to purchase sugar, and supplement that—on condition that the social welfare services in the West Indies are developed, that compulsory education and old age pensions, which they have not got at present, are granted—by taking at least half of the reserve funds of the colonies affected and supplement it still more by the issue of local stock from local people who have money invested in the Government Savings Banks, guaranteeing the interest at 4 per cent. If the Government did that with their subsidy, and supplemented it by the issue of local stock, I feel sure that the import board would have sufficient funds to start its operations and in that way you would have a scheme by which, at a small additional cost of about one farthing in the pound to the British consumer, the West Indian crisis would be solved in a few months.
That is the way in which we should tackle this problem. It may be beyond
the ordinary Member of this House, but I have studied the question, and if the Government adopted the recommendation of an import board and supplemented its funds in this way, the sugar scheme could be so arranged that at a small cost to English consumers you could save the West Indian colonies from what is really economic ruin, especially in the case of the labour population. Such a policy would gain respect for the Government in the West Indies. Here I want to issue a note of warning. I believe there is a deliberate plot to exploit the present situation both here and in the West Indies in order to discredit the good faith of the Labour Government.
The Government should be alive to such a situation. They are doing their best, but there are people in the colonies and elsewhere who are trying to make the local black proletariat believe that the Labour Government cannot and will not help them in the face of officialdom. If the Labour Government go in for a policy such as I have outlined, and announce their intention to appoint a small, vigorous and active new commission to study the political State situation with a view of making the West Indian colonies pay for themselves, as they are very anxious to do, they would at any rate leave their mark on West Indian policy and do something to retrieve the reputation of the Colonial Office. Part of the blame for this must not be put on the present Labour Government. It must be put on the Colonial Office and its advisers; and on local administrators.
They have seen this thing coming for years. Recommendations made 30 years ago have not been carried out yet by the Colonial Office. The high officials have taken those recommendations and pigeon-holed them, lost them, forgotten all about them. Local administrators have not touched the problem and the Colonial Office is simply blocking progress. They have no information; and even when information comes to them they will not act upon it. They allow local governors to do what they like, to intimidate, in a manner which should not be allowed. A local J.P. was struck off the list for daring to criticise a volunteer movement, but I do not want to touch upon that matter as I propose
to refer to it on the Colonial Office Vote. I believe the Labour Government are anxious to do well, and they will do well if they are in office long enough. [An HON. MEMBER: "How long?"] As long as your Government was in office. The Colonial Office is standing in the way and the Government, if they have a sympathetic, vigorous and right policy, towards the West Indies can be assured of West Indian support, not from those who hold the power at present but from the people who are rising and demanding electoral franchise and the extension of self-government. If they will pursue such a policy and deal with the financial situation in the way I have suggested, they will have done something at any rate to justify their colonial policy.

Sir JOHN GANZONI: I, like other hon. Members listened with a great deal of interest to the last speaker. He gave a good many hard knocks but I am sure that much will be forgiven to him because of the fervour of the zealot. The worst of his speech to my mind was that he sought to turn what I believe to be an industrial issue into a political issue. We must all agree that these very old and loyal colonies, the West Indies, are in a parlous plight at the present time. A large number of them are almost wholly dependent upon sugar, and sugar is a crop which, more than any other, requires a very large amount of labour practically all the year round. There are some of the islands where they produce limes in large quantities, and others, such as Trinidad, where there is a considerable production of cocoa, but neither of these crops gives employment on a very large scale. After all, one cannot make much by sitting under a lime tree in an agreeable tropical climate for 364 days of the year and taking the limes off the tree on the 365th day. It is only for a few weeks that there is any work in connection with the cocoa but in regard to sugar there is the planting, then it requires tending practically all the year round, then there is the cutting, the crushing and the boiling. There is also the work of manuring, and generally speaking there is an enormous amount of work in connection with the crop.
It is a very desirable crop because it not only produces sugar, but there is also the sugar cane with the juice in it
of which the negroes in the West Indies are very fond. No part of the sugar cane is wasted. The pulp from which the sugar is crushed is afterwards boiled and can be made use of, while the cane tops are used as green fodder, and a good deal of that delectable liquid which is so much appreciated by the robust seamen of His Majesty's Navy—rum—is solely derived from the sugar cane. These islands, contrary to the statement of the hon. Member who has just sat down, have at any rate prospered to a considerable extent under the policy of Imperial Preference which is favoured by hon. Members on this side of the House. I do not wish to weary the House with figures, but I must give some in order to show the progress made in the American islands where they have advantages not enjoyed by the West Indies. The American islands receive a preference of just under 10s. in the American markets. I compare the figures for 1900–1901 with the figures for 1927–1928. In Porto Rico the production has gone up from 80,000 tons to 670,880 tons in that period. In Hawaii and the Sandwich Islands under the same beneficial treatment the production has gone up from 296,000 tons to 807,000 tons in the same time. In the Philippines the exports—I have only the exports and not the production—were 48,000 tons 30 years ago, and were 622,000 tons two years ago. Those are enormous increases.
The British islands in the West Indies and British Colony of Guiana on the mainland have benefited under Imperial Preference. They have gone up from 95,000 tons 30 years ago to 114,000 tons two years ago. Trinidad has risen from 50,000 tons to 81,000 tons in the same period; and Jamaica from 30,000 tons to 63,000 tons. Antigua and St. Kitts—where they have a central factory—have gone from 25,000 tons to 39,000 tons, while Mauritius has risen from 190,000 tons to 215,000 tons. They all have derived direct and appreciable benefit from Imperial Preference, but, at the present time, in view of the great progress which is being made by the colonies of other countries, and also in view of the competition of Continental beet that preference is riot enough. As the hon. Member who spoke last admitted they are now incurring a regular, and I rather fear a progressive loss, and they ask for
a preference of about 2s. or at least 1s. per cwt. more, which would bring the 3s. 8d. up to 4s. 8d. or 5s. 8d.—the Canadian preference being 4s. 8d. and the American preference, as I have said, is nearer 10s.
I do not wish to go into any political arguments, and I most certainly do not wish to offend the hon. Member who has spoken last or anybody else; 9.0 p.m. but I want to help, if I can, in this matter, and the best way of doing so is, I think, to point out reasons why it may be worth while to listen to the demand which is now being made from these old and loyal colonists of ours. If we, by our neglect, destroy this trade and if we get no more Imperial sugar from the West Indies, then we shall not have these West Indian English-speaking customers under the British flag for the manufactured products of this country. I believe this market is worth about £6,000,000 a year. They take British agricultural machinery; they take artificial manures; they take our manufactures, our groceries, and our clothing. They have a taste for British goods. They are our own fellow-subjects in every sense of the word. Probably everybody knows that at the present day the trade on the longest passages by sea is still chiefly done in British ships, whereas the European coastwise trade is chiefly in foreign ships. If we have to take foreign sugar, in place of this British Imperial sugar we shall have to pay for it in gold.
Look what a fuss is made—perhaps not wrongly—if, for instance, the Bank Rate is put down and foreign countries immediately take British sovereigns in large quantities and they go abroad. We cannot help that, but we can help deliberately paying over to foreigners good British money, which otherwise would come back again from the West Indies and pay for the manufactures of this country. If it goes to pay for the products of foreign countries, made by foreign workmen, it will never come back to this country in any way or at any time. I have no intention of attacking the Chancellor of the Exchequer any more than I have of attacking the hon. Member who spoke last. Indeed I only wish I had the chance of being at close quarters with the right hon. Gentleman, in order to try to convince him on this matter and to argue and reason sweetly with him upon it. I think if he were fully
persuaded of the practical advantages which would accrue, not only to these old Colonies, but also to this country, by at least maintaining the preference which has now been given for many years, I do not believe that the right hon. Gentleman would insist on the determination which we fear he has formed, to abolish that preference, little as it is, in his forthcoming Budget.

Captain PETER MACDONALD: I have just returned from a short tour in the West Indian Islands, and although my stay was a brief one, I have had the opportunity of studying at first hand the economic position of these Islands, and the effect that the removal of these duties will have upon the sugar industry there. I listened to some arguments of hon. Members in regard to the conditions in Cuba and the American islands, and I have no hesitation in saying that, if the hon. Member for North-West Camberwell (Dr. Morgan) who spoke with such knowledge and sincerity, were to consult these people in the West Indies, and compare their conditions with those of Cuba, he would find that, deplorable as he may consider them to be, they are a hundredfold better than the conditions of the Cuban and other American colony workers. I have risen to make a few comments upon the Report of the West Indian Commission, and to ask the Minister responsible if he will be good enough to give us some information as to what the Government's policy is in regard to this Commission, because I cannot think that the statement made in another place two days ago is the last word the Government have to say on the subject.
Perhaps he will be able to inform us why the Report of the Commission, which was made some two months ago, has been suppressed until a few days ago. That is a question which has not been answered by the Government. I think that it is due to the fact that one of the first findings of the Commission was that something had to be done immediately and within two months from the date of the issue of the Report or the industry would be utterly ruined, and the Government, rather than issue the Report two months ago and fearing that public opinion would be so strong as to make them take immediate action sup-
pressed the Report until the two months were practically up, and the industry is, as the Commission said it would be, faced with utter ruin and extinction. I fully endorse the findings of the Commission. They demand immediate help for the industry, and recommend that only a guaranteed price of £15 a ton and an increased preference of 4s. 8d. per hundredweight will save the situation. I think that that is a practical policy and one which the Government would be well advised to adopt. I think, too, that it is the only policy which would really help the industry. There are some, I know, who take a different view. Some take the view that an immediate and a continued subsidy is the best solution of the problem, but after careful consideration I have come to the conclusion, for what it is worth, that the best means of dealing with the situation is by giving a guaranteed price, with an increased preference of 4s. 8d. per hundredweight.
Another question I want to ask is why the Government ever appointed this Commission if they had no intention of carrying out their findings. There must have been some reason for appointing the Commission; the Government must have realised the seriousness of the situation in the islands before they appointed them. Having appointed them, why have they suppressed their Report for two months, and why have they turned down every recommendation contained in the Report? I could well understand that, following the policy of the present Government, if this Commission had been appointed by a Conservative Government, they might well have taken the action which they have taken. But this Commission were appointed by this Government themselves, and it had as as chairman Lord Olivier, who holds the respect not only of this House, but of the whole country. Whatever we may think about his politics, we all agree that Lord Olivier has a greater knowledge the conditions in the West Indian Islands than perhaps any man in this country. He was a civil servant of very high distinction, who had been Governor of one at least of these islands. Therefore, he speaks with an experience and knowledge which should commend itself to the Government which appointed him.
A good deal has been said about the conditions in the West Indies, but in the
Report it will be found that the Government are not asked to bolster up an industry which is inefficient. The Report says that the West Indies are producing sugar cheaper, with a higher standard of working conditions than perhaps any other country in the world, and yet they are faced with this very serious situation through no fault of their own. The causes are obvious to anyone who has studied the economic conditions throughout the world. They have had to face competition of countries like Cuba and the American islands, which are working with cheaper labour conditions, and are bolstered up by a protective tariff, which ensures them a home market and allows them to dump their surplus sugar on the world. That is the situation which we have to face in almost every industry in this country to-day, and therefore we should have every sympathy with the West Indies, who are faced with it in an even more serious way than we are, because of the fact that they have only one industry to maintain. That, at any rate, applies to Barbados where 66 per cent. of the population are dependent upon the sugar industry, St. Kitts 100 per cent., and Antigua 100 per cent., British Guiana 50 per cent., and so on.
Therefore, it is not due to any inefficiency on the part of the sugar planters of those Islands that they are faced with a serious situation. They are killed by tariffs, by subsidies and, last but by no means least, by the uncertainty caused by the very reckless statements made by the Chanceller of the Exchequer. It is all very well, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot escape responsibility for the statements which he made about preferences and duties; because I had it myself, only a few days ago, from sugar planters in Barbadoes and the other islands, that the uncertainty caused by the Chancellor of the Exchequer has completely ruined the sale of their crop this year. They are faced with a situation such as they have never had to face before; they found their whole market in this country killed, at any rate for the present, by the uncertainty caused by the statements of the Chancellor. Further, they had to store the crop this year instead of exporting it, and as they have not storage room that added to their difficulties.
I do not want to be too controversial on this subject because, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ipswich (Sir J. Ganzoni) has said, this is purely an economic question, although the Government are not entirely without blame. The Lord Privy Seal has stated that the only prospect of curing unemployment in this country is by restoring industry to prosperity and restoring our export trade. Row does he propose to increase, or even to maintain, our existing export trade it such a very valuable market as that of the West Indies is to be destroyed by this action of the Chancellor of the Exchequer? Manufactured goods to the value of £7,000,000 were exported to the West Indies last year. That is a valuable market, but it will be completely destroyed, because we cannot expect them to give us preferences on our manufactured goods if we refuse to give them any consideration in regard to their staple products. Surely this matter requires the serious consideration of a Government who are piling up an unemployment register in the way the present Government are. The proposals made by the present Government are, on the admission of the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, absolutely and utterly useless. In the first place it is stated by the Commission that any remedy must be immediate, as anyone who has any knowledge of the situation would agree. On the other hand, it is admitted that the offer, which I consider a very stupid offer, made by the Secretary of State on behalf of the Government, cannot benefit the industry for at least two years, or at any rate not for another year. That being so, what was the point in making such an offer? Why they made an offer at all, if they did not want to face the facts and make an honest offer, is beyond my comprehension. Not one of the islands has accepted it as a feasible or reasonable or workable proposition.
I would emphasise the point that these Colonies are our oldest dependencies. At one time Barbados was our oldest oversea possession, with the exception of Newfoundland. It is peopled with loyal, industrious, hard-working people, who are anxious to be loyal to the British Crown. They have shown their loyalty in the past. They showed it in the Great War. The West Indies sent several regiments oversea. and the West Indian Regiment distinguished itself on more
than one front during the late War. They are still anxious to maintain their connection with the Mother Country, they are still anxious to be loyal, but if this industry is killed, as it must be if nothing is done in the immediate future, the East Indians will have to be repatriated from the islands, and that is going to cost something like £2,000,000 and will, in itself, bankrupt the islands. Therefore, unless prompt action is taken, we stand a very good prospect of losing these islands altogether in the quite near future.
I can well understand the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is not prepared to assist home industries when they are faced with destruction by unfair foreign competition, not doing anything for the West Indies, but I urge upon the Minister who is responsible to this House for Colonial affairs, and whosé sincerity in this matter I know, to impress upon the Government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer the extreme urgency of this matter and the necessity of acting immediately in carrying out the findings of the Commission. Otherwise these islands will be lost to the Mother Country, and history will record, I am afraid, that as the tea duties lost us the American Colonies the sugar duties were responsible for losing us our West Indian Colonies.

Mr. TINNE: It has been most interesting to a West Indian to listen to this Debate, and if full reports of it reach the West Indies they will be read there with even greater interest. In the first place, it may be as well to emphasise the fact that the West Indies are not coming here cap in hand, as though asking for a favour. We are coming here with a claim for damages. That is the line which we had better take, and which will undoubtedly be taken in the West Indies. During the last few months, as a result of statements made here, we have been absolutely denuded of the market for sugar in this country; our main buyers, the refiners, have been demanding a clause in all contracts stating that any change in duty shall be for account of the seller, whether the sugar has been melted or not. It will be seen, therefore, how utterly impossible it has been to do business for some time past. This has been the case not only in this country
but also in Canada, our alternative market, and for a similar reason. The Canadian refiner is no fool, and, when he sees we have no market in this country, he realises that he can put the screw on the other side as well.
In another place, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, after holding up Lord Olivier's Report for a most scandalous length of time, has made one or two statements which need modification. In the first place, he practically said that he would do nothing for us, because that is what his offer amounts to. In doing so, he made two statements, one of which is very disingenuous. He said that the preference cost the British taxpayer £2,500,000. If all the sugar entering this country was full duty sugar would it save the British taxpayer £2,500,000? I ask, was it a fair statement as to facts? Secondly, he said that the British West Indies and Mauritius had promoted the world's over-production by increasing their crops by 60 per cent. I should very much like to see his figures in proof of that and how he thinks, if the West Indies have increased their crop, any small increase we make is going to make any difference.
Another point which has been mentioned by other hon. Members is the effect of this sugar business on the employment of this country. Does the House, particularly the Clydeside Members—and I am sorry to see there are none present—realise the amount of industry which is brought to them from the sugar colonies? I wonder whether any of those gentlemen from the Clydeside realise the amount of business that goes to the Clydeside owing to the sugar machinery orders which go there to all the big firms, such as Mirrlees, Watson and Company, McOnie, Harvey and Company, John McNeal, Colonial Iron Works. Govan, Potts, Cassels and Williamson, the Glebe Refinery, and so on. In the Lord Privy Seal's own constituency there is the firm of Fletcher and Company, of Derby, which has a good deal of work connected with sugar. People such as these, hon. Gentlemen opposite are casting out of employment by not realising that sugar is a mainspring of employment. I should like to say one or two words with regard to the Report itself. The sugar planter's business is, naturally, to get as much sugar as he can economically from the
cane. He does not go in for such academic considerations as getting the last ounce of sugar out of the cane when it would mean a loss to do so. It is the same kind of problem as in shipbuilding. Every shipbuilder knows he can build a ship of a certain speed to burn a certain amount of coal, but if he wants an extra knot he has to make machinery which will burn a great deal more coal.
That is the kind of problem with which we are faced. We can get more sugar out of the canes. In the criticisms in this Report, it says that we get a low extraction from the cane and could get more, but it would cost us more than the value to get it. That is why we do not do it. We are not here to produce for academic purposes. We are in business to make money. Let me give one or two instances, since we are criticised for it. The distinguished member of the Commission who makes the criticism is a machinery manufacturer and makes very good machinery, too, and from his own point of view, no doubt, his criticism is fairly justified. It is said that planters in British Guiana could increase extraction, but it is not an economic proposition. The canes with rich juice are not generally of as vigorous a constitution as those with poor juice. The Report mentions that Seedling D. 625 provides the bulk of the crop. So it does. It is a highly vigorous cane, and gives juice which polarises 1.3 lbs. to the gallon of juice. The Report mentions another cane, the Diamond 10, which gives very much better polarisation and yields three tons to the acre. There are other seedlings, such as the Barbados B. 208 which has now gone out of cultivation, but which gives juice polarising at 2 lbs. to the gallon. That cane has gone out of cultivation to a certain extent, because it was not sufficiently vigorous.
I mentioned these points because they all bear on the suggestion that we could get more sugar from the cane, though it is not an economic policy. Similarly with regard to the manufacturing process, there is a process known as maceration. When you have juice of a certain richness it is sprayed and crushed again a second time and you get more sugar out of it. That process with rich juice is sometimes worth while when the sugar commands high prices, but it is no good doing it with sugar at the present price and when you in fact have to pay more
for the fuel than you get by the sugar you recover. Hon. Members will excuse me for having ventured into these details, but I think some criticism of the Report was necessary. In the main, I thoroughly agree with the recommendations, and I wish they could be put into effect. On the whole, what is wanted is not dope but some permanent cure.

Mr. MARJORIBANKS: When the Noble Lord the Secretary of State for the Colonies began his policy by a cynical smile, one was reminded that history repeats itself. This is not the first time that a Government has been ruined by its policy with regard to the sugar industry. I was reading the other day the words of a very famous Member of this House, Mr. Disraeli, and this is what he said:
Sugar is an article of Colonial produce which had been embarrassing, if not fatal, to many Governments. Strange that a manufacture which charms infancy and soothes old age should so frequently occasion political disaster.
I would ask hon. Members opposite to believe my sincerity in this matter. It is not for us at this moment to try to embarrass the Government with regard to this question. We are concerned for much more practical purposes to get something done, and I think we have every right to say that something must be done. This Debate, if one can call it a Debate, has been going on for some time, and up to the present there has not been a Member of this House who has dared to defend the policy of the Government. There was one hon. Member, the hon. Member for North-West Camberwell (Dr. Morgan), who spoke from below the Gangway on the other side. One must always admire political loyalty in this House, but he began his speech with a general reference to the class warfare question. He knew the situation of the West Indies sugar trade, and it was perfectly apparent before he sat down that he was speaking from exactly the same point of view and with exactly the same conviction and purpose as the right hon. Gentleman who has spoken from the Front Bench on this side.
I suppose in the course of the evening we shall hear a speech in defence of the Government's attitude. My hon. Friend nods his head. I think it will be a very difficult case to make out, and I have the
greatest sympathy with him. We on this side know a large number of hon. Members opposite who share the convictions of their colleague and one of their late chiefs, Lord Olivier. We have no desire on this side to generalise this issue. Of course, it is a perfectly typical issue of the world situation, but we want to take this as an isolated instance and to help a part of our Empire which is in dire distress; and in this respect one cannot help criticising with very great bitterness the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Representations have been made to us not to irritate the Chancellor of the Exchequer on this matter for fear he might harden his heart, but I think we know him, and I think we all agree that he has not a mind so small that his policy could be changed by criticism, however bitter and however strong.
It is exceedingly relevant to consider the attitude of Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ever since he made his statement on the subject, on the Address last July, I think it was, the greatest anxiety has been prevalent throughout our West Indian Colonies. One has only to read the statements of Lord Olivier himself, and one cannot acquit the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who ought to be here to-night, and who had an opportunity of speaking on this question on the Adjournment some months ago, of very grave responsibility in dealing a deadly blow at one of the oldest industries in the Empire. I would like to read a quotation from page 19 of the Noble Lord's report. The Noble Lord was sent out because, I suppose, he was in sympathy with the policy of His Majesty's Government—he had no prejudices—and this is what he said about the policy and the statements of the Chancellor of the Exchequer:
The market for West Indian sugar for future delivery has already been for the present destroyed by uncertainty as to the policy which may be contemplated by His Majesty's Government, possibly in connection with the next Budget, with regard to the Sugar Duties. The utterances of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the 9th of July and of December last have rendered it impossible to obtain any quotations.
That is what the attitude of the Chancellor of the Exchequer has achieved for the West Indian sugar trade. Ever since he made those statements, representations
have been made almost daily to him to declare his policy, and he has persisted in obstinate silence. I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that fraud lies not merely in active misrepresentation, but in wilful suppression of material facts. One cannot acquit Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer of doing very great harm to this industry merely by his silence, but let us see what his silence means. It is not a passive silence; it is an active silence. He sent out the Noble Lord to investigate this problem, and his conclusions were virtually in the hands of the Government last December, but they have not been published till the other day. Nobody has had an opportunity of really studying the Report. No reason whatever has been given for the suppression of this Report. No reasonable, proper ground has been given for withholding it.
The only reason that so far has been given was that the Secretary of State for the Colonies wished to publish this Report in toto with Part [V. He persisted, I believe, in that statement a short time ago, till it was pointed out to him that Part IV had not made its appearance, and it is announced in the Report that it will be published late. Of course, that was not the reason Why the Report was withheld. One very unwillingly attributes evil motives to any Government in suppressing any Report, but one has to draw the necessary inferences. Throughout this Report there runs one note, and that is the necessity for immediate publication and for immediate measures. Let me read from page 6 of the Report, from Lord Olivier's telegram in December. He said:
Without immediate help or encouragement. … the industry will at once be further depressed and diminished, undeservedly and uneconomically for the world and the Empire, while, if preference is summarily withdrawn, it will undeservedly and uneconomically quickly perish.
Notice the word "immediate." Then let me read one more quotation, from page 13. I think this was in the hands of my hon. Friend on the 1st February:
How far the risk may materialise in the abandonment of sugar production after the coming crop, or the efficient handling of that crop be impaired through financial difficulties, would, in our opinion, depend upon whether any assistance or guarantee of support to the industry can be given within the next two months.
What has happened "within the next two months"? The right hon. Gentleman has suppressed the Report for the whole of the two months, so that the people of this country could not be aware of the Report of the Commissioner sent out to inquire into this matter. When the Noble Lord said that the one important thing was to take action in the next two months, how can we acquit the Government of negligence or fraud in this matter? Let us read how the Report winds up:
Unless the assistance can be guaranteed and the promise of it made at an early date, we see no probability of the extinction of the British West Indian sugar industry being prevented.
Those are the last words in the Report, and it has been withheld for the last two months. The Government have delayed, and then they produce this wonderful statement of policy, which amounts to nothing whatever. It is, of course, a policy of despair. It is in effect the policy of the dole, so familiar and so dear to the hearts and ingenuity of hon. Members opposite. It is not in any way a subsidy; it is a loan, not to the borrower, but to the lender, to the bank, in certain contingencies which will probably never come about. At any rate, these proposals have been universally rejected by every competent authority in the West Indies. It really does nothing to justify the flaunting boast of the new capitalist newspaper of the Labour party, which describes the West Indian sugar industry as being saved by these proposals, a prophesy that is superficial and a little premature.
The position in this matter is extremely simple—the world position as regards the sugar trade. The position is that, owing to subsidies and to tariffs in other parts of the world, we have an over-production of sugar. The Government, in their reply, may well seek to put responsibility upon the West Indies themselves for this over-production, but if they will look at their own colleague's Report, they will find that Lord Olivier goes behind the mere fact of over-production, looks at its causes, and attributes it to preferences and subsidies; and he says that in a Free Trade world the British West Indies would be producing sugar at a high profit. He urges the Government to bring about a better position as regards these tariffs and subsidies, and in the meantime he
proposes definitely to increase our own tariffs. That is the only reasonable policy in this matter. There is already an over-production of over 1,000,000 tons a year, and somebody has to go to the wall when there are other rivals trying to drive one part of the industry out of the trade. In the meantime it is absolutely essential to subsidise this trade. It is not a mere palliative that is required, because every year the consumption of sugar goes up by 4½ per cent. Gradually consumption is drawing nearer to production, and we have only to hold our own for a short time and better times will come to the British West Indies trade.
It is absolutely necessary that we should protect these, people. If you are optimistic, you may look upon what is proposed as an investment. I believe it would be a good investment. I believe that the British West Indian sugar trade will look up, especially if it is rationalised, in the sugar industry of the world. Attempts are being made at rationalisation all over the world, and there is no reason why this sugar trade should not be rationalised as a whole. If you cannot look upon what is suggested as an investment, you can, at all events, look upon it as an insurance against worse things happening. I think what has been suggested is a £2 per ton subsidy on the West Indian sugar, which, in spite of the extravagant remarks which have been made, would be less than £1,000,000.
What would that sum mean compared with the liability we should have to face if the prophecy of Lord Olivier comes true? In respect of the return of indentured Indian labour alone the cost would amount to £2,000,000. What about the rest of the island, which would have its revenues destroyed and its social services rendered impossible. Think of the cost that would be necessary if the whole of this great community had to go without work and subsistence. Think of the cost that would be placed upon the taxpayers of this country. We cannot afford to neglect this question, and it is our duty, from every consideration of reason, duty and sentiment, to look after these people before actual disaster comes. I had the experience this summer of visiting America and being the guest of the American army in Panama. The officers there rely for their service on West
Indian negro labour. It was very pathetic, considering the circumstances, to understand their great loyalty and pride in regard to the British connection. I found it very refreshing on that occasion to hear from some of these people the English accent, and it was quite a change from the well-known American twang. They are very sensitive at the smallest disagreement with their masters. They produce British passports, and say "We are British subjects." They despise base-ball, and prefer to play cricket. They are British citizens and ought to be treated properly. Many of them desire to go back to the island which they love so much, and where they have spent most of their lives. T cannot defend the method by which the people were brought to those islands in the first place, but there they are. It is our duty to look after them, and it would be a monstrous crime if any Government were to run the risk of ruining them. What is their crime? Their only crime is that of belonging to the British Empire. Had these people belonged to any other country, had they been like the people of Cuba wrested from their European connection by a war, or had they been part of the French Empire or even attached to the Portuguese, they would not have been in their present distress. Their one crime is that they belong to the British Empire, and under those circumstances it seems to me that it is the bounden duty of the Government to see that they are protected.
This is not merely a one-sided affair. It is obvious that the West Indies bring to the workers of this country very great benefit indeed, because they imported last year;£7,000,000 worth of manufactured goods from this country. Supposing they go bankrupt, where will that source of employment be? Last year they imported from the United States another £7,000,000 worth of goods. The people of these islands are prepared to do anything to save themselves, and they are prepared to give a preference to the manufactured goods of this country, which would cause an immense increase of trade from the West Indies. If you go to the West Indies you will not see a single British motor car. Imagine the stimulus that would be given to the British motor car trade in this country if we had a substantial preference in
favour of British motor cars. In all these matters we have an absolutely unanswerable case on merits, and in some measure I think it is the duty of the Government to do something to recompense the West Indies for the disaster which the Chancellor of the Exchequer, by his obstinacy and dogmatism, has brought upon them during the last year.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Dr. Drummond Shiels): We have had in this discussion a number of interesting speeches, and it might be thought from some of them, perhaps notably that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stafford (Mr. Ormsby-Gore) and that of the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Marjori-banks), that the Government have shown no sympathy with the West Indian Colonies in their plight, but have shown, indeed, a cynical indifference, and have made no great effort to meet the need which actually exists. That, however, is not so. The condition of things in the West Indies and in Mauritius has been a matter of very great concern to His Majesty's Government, and if we have not been able to accept heroic remedies, it is not because we have treated the subject lightly or have been without a realisation of its great importance. We have been criticised to-night on account of the delay in the publication of this report. I think, however, it is obvious that the bulk of the information in the report was already well known to those whom it concerns, and the important matter was to know what the policy of His Majesty's Government was in regard to this subject. I do not think it can be said that the delay in publication has had any bad effect at all.

Mr. MARJORIBANKS: What is the reason for the delay?

Dr. SHIELS: It is, as have just explained, that we were enabled by the delay to publish at the same time the policy of the Government. A great many points have been brought forward in this discussion, but the main facts are simple. For various reasons, more sugar has been produced during the last few years than could be consumed, and the West Indian Colonies have contributed their share to that over-production. They are not to blame for that, because it is the result of the disorganised condition
of the sugar industry as a whole, but stocks of sugar have been accumulated, the world price has gone down very low, and has gone down lower than the cost of production. Our sugar Colonies get a preference of about £3 15s. per ton, and, were the market price normal, that preference would be sufficient to make production profitable; but under present conditions it still leaves the bulk of the producers on the wrong side, and it is declared by competent authorities that, if the preference were removed, the industry would be in a very serious condition.
When the Government were apprised of the state of things in the West Indies, they sent out a Commission to make investigations, and a previous one had been arranged for Mauritius by the last Government. The publication of the Reports of these Commissioners, and the Government's response to them, are the subject of our discussion to-night. With regard to the West Indies, I think it will be agreed, whatever our view may be, that the West Indian Report is a valuable document, and that, apart from its recommendations, it will be very useful to all concerned with the Colonies and their main industry. Hon. Members will agree that it is a mine of information, and will be a very valuable work of reference.
10.0 p.m.
What are we asked to do by the West Indies Report? There are four recommendations. There are two main alternatives, and hon. Members on this side have listened without success to find out which of the recommendations hon. and right hon. Members opposite would ask the Government to accept. It has not been at all clear which part of the Report hon. Members opposite were anxious to see adopted. It was stated that we had accepted none of the recommendations, but hon. Members will be glad to know that at least we have considered that His Majesty's Government should make a resolute effort to eliminate, in concert with other Powers, the disturbing forces of high tariffs and subsidies. [Interruption.] I was just going to point out that my right hon. Friend and colleague, the President of the Board of Trade, has been very actively engaged in that work during the last few weeks. We agree that, while that course is desirable, and will be
pursued by His Majesty's Government, it is not of any immediate benefit to the sugar Colonies. As is pointed out in the White Paper on policy, the third and fourth recommendations of the Commission which concern the preference, really arise on the Budget statement, and cannot be anticipated by any announcement now In regard to an increased preference, that was definitely excluded by the instructions to the Commission, which are printed at the beginning of the Report, and it was rather surprising to see it included as a recommendation. There has been a good deal of criticism about the failure to intimate whether the preference was to be maintained or not, and I think the hon. Member for Waver-tree (Mr. Tinne) pointed out that that gave rise to a great deal of uncertainty. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has on numerous occasions pointed out that uncertainty is associated with preferences and subsidies and bounties, and hon. Members opposite, while they admit that, will feel that there are other compensations. I think it will be agreed that it would be a very undesirable precedent to start to intimate Budget statements prematurely. It might be said that this is an exceptional case, but there are many exceptional cases, and, if we started this policy, the day might come when the unfortunate Chancellor of the Exchequer would be without material for making any Budget statement at all. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has a full knowledge of all the facts of the situation, which have been placed before him by the Departments concerned, and also by the large and important deputation which waited upon him yesterday. and we must now await his judgment. I am sorry that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen to-night made such a very unmerited attack on the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and described him in lurid language as the villain of the piece. It must be obvious, that every Member of the Government is responsible for the decision that has been made, and the Government is not only unanimous in this matter, but has the support of hon. Members behind me.
The most important and interesting recommendation is the second, in regard to the Import Board. That is a recommendation which is in line with sugges-
tions that have been made from another aspect by some of my hon. Friends, but, however much we may sympathise with the idea, we have to have regard to the state of this country at the present time, and to consider whether from that point of view the proposal is practicable. The fixed minimum rate suggested by the Commission was £15 a ton, and, at the time when the Commission reported, that represented an increase of £3 per ton on the market price; but, with the change in prices, it now represents a difference of £3 10s. per ton. The Commission contemplated a single central authority to buy and distribute the whole of the sugar consumed in Great Britain. It is, however, impossible to distinguish between sugar imported for consumption and imported sugar for subsequent export after refining, and possibly after being changed into the form of manufactured articles. The enhanced price would accordingly have to be based on all imports of Imperial sugar.
In 1929 the imports of non-Empire sugar were 1,400,000 tons, which represented 58 per cent. of our total supply. The imported Empire sugar amounted to 710,000 tons, and the home-grown sugar was 290,000 tons, which made a total of 1,000,000 tons, or 42 per cent. of the total supply. The whole of the imports of sugar, with the home production, amounted to 2,400,000 tons. For 1930 the home production is estimated at 375,000 tons. If a minimum buying price of £15 per ton for Empire sugar were adopted an increased amount of Empire sugar would certainly be offered to this country, and on the assumption that the higher price would be paid for Dominion as well as Colonial sugar, and that similar terms would have to be given for home-grown sugar, it is estimated that not far short of two-thirds of our total supply eventually might have to be bought at the enhanced price.
On the figures that I have given this result would represent an increase in the retail price of £2 12s. per ton, or 28d. per lb. Further, in order not to prejudice the sugar export trade, something in the nature of a rebate corresponding to the amount paid for the sugar in excess of the market price would need to be given. The exports of sugar and molasses in 1929 amounted to over 200,000 tons, and
the cost of the rebate would be somewhere about £600,000. If this cost also were passed on to the British consumer, the increase in the retail price would represent, not 28d. per lb., but about 31d. per lb. It appears, therefore, that an increase of ¼d. per lb. in the retail price would not suffice except for a short period, and the retail price might have to be advanced by ½d. per lb.
As the Government see the proposal, it could be carried out only by imposing an extra charge on the consumer in this country, amounting, on the basis of current prices and supplies, to something like £4,000,000 a year in the first place, and in the fairly near future probably reaching as much as £6,000,000 a year. As stated in the White Paper, the Government are unable to agree to the imposition of this burden on the consumers of this country. It must be remembered that you cannot take this industry of sugar purely as an isolated case. There are other Empire industries which are not in too happy a position. There are home industries which are also in difficulties. The question which to some hon. Members opposite appears to be so simple, when considered in the light of these possible ramifications, is seen to be a very serious one indeed.
In regard to the Mauritius Report, I think that right hon. and hon. Members will agree that we were again fortunate in our Commissioner. Sir Francis Watts has made a very clear and very succinct Report, and has described very well the position of the industry in that interesting colony. He recommends a definite grant-in-aid, based on the losses of the previous year. The estimate for the first, year was £235,000, and that was based on the price when the Report was made. But on the basis of present prices the figure would amount to something like £600,000 for next year. Further, it would not be possible to differentiate in methods of assistance between different colonies, and if a grant-in-aid of this kind were given it would have to be applied generally, and would amount to a very serious figure.
An attempt has been made, not only to-night but at other times and in other places, to make this a party matter and to make party capital cut of the attitude of the present Government. But there is very little party capital to be
made out of it. Prominent members of the late Government who have denounced us both here and in another place, had the same problem before them at the beginning of last year. They were definitely and specifically asked to raise the preference to meet a similar situation, and, be it noted, the policy of preference, as we have heard to-night, is one which is very dear to their hearts and is in line with their principles. Yet, although that was the case, their Chancellor of the Exchequer, against whom nothing has been said to-night, did not find himself able to increase the preference, and the late Government did nothing at all to meet the situation. All the vituperation that has been poured on us to-night could quite well be made retrospective and poured on the heads of hon. Members opposite.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: Were the conditions the same a year ago?

Dr. SHIELS: They were not quite as bad, but it was practically the same position in a less advanced stage, and one can say that it would have been easier then to have dealt with it. If it had been grappled with, as it would have been by a vigorous Government, we would not have had this problem to deal with now. Our financial position in this country is certainly not less serious than theirs was last year. While we do not look for consistency in opposition, I think the remembrance of these facts might at any rate have helped to tone down a little the criticism that we have had, but it has not had that effect. Fortunately, politicians forget easily, or their lives would perhaps not always be worth living. Not only are the facts in regard to the position of the late Government as I have stated, but we have had no guidance to-night as to which line of policy we ought to adopt. There has been a great clamouring for something to be done immediately.

Captain P. MACDONALD: I, at any rate, suggested a policy that you could adopt.

Dr. SHIELS: Every suggestion we have had has been very vague. We suggested an interim arrangement, which had nothing to do really with the main policy, to assist the banks to give credit to the industry, but our proposals have not been received with any great
enthusiasm. That was partly because it was thought that we put those proposals forward as a solution, which we did not, but we thought that they would assist to tide over a difficult time. I believe, in spite of all that has been said here and in the Press, it will be found that these proposals will serve a very useful purpose, and I hope they will be found to be of some service and that, along with the co-operation of the small producers and the making available of better credit and marketing facilities, the undoubtedly difficult and serious position of the West Indian authorities may be abated.
I should like to associate myself with some of the remarks that were made by the hon. Member for North-West Camberwell (Dr. Morgan). It is interesting to notice that Lord Olivier's report made very definite and specific reference to the condition of the workers in the West Indies. I was very glad that the hon. Member referred to it, and it is to the credit of Lord Olivier and his colleagues that he called attention to those conditions. They were called attention to by the 1897 Commission, and it is a very remarkable thing, in reading the Report of that Commission, to find how very similar was the language used, not only about the condition of the industry and the importance of immediate help but also about the social conditions of the workers. Lord Olivier and his colleagues say in their report that, although there has been some improvement since 1897, the conditions are not generally satisfactory. There is no doubt that the wages are low. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stafford seemed to suggest that the workers in the West Indies were paid good wages. He suggested, at any rate, that they were paid higher than in Cuba. That is not my information. In regard to Java it is very difficult to make a comparison. One requires to know what is the value of the real wages.

Captain MACDONALD: I can tell you definitely what the wages are.

Dr. SHIELS: Yes, I know, but you have to know the living conditions. I believe in Java the workers have free rice fields allotted to them, and the value of that in regard to their wages, of course, is not mentioned in these comparisons. I think the West Indies have always had a low wage policy and the method of em-
ployment is not good. I have made reference here to the Report, but I have other opportunities of finding out what is the position in the West Indies. I have been very seriously concerned, not only about low wages but about the labour laws, the master and servant ordinances, the lack of workmen's compensation, the state of the health services, the absence of factory legislation, which, I believe, only exists in one Colony, and also about what is. perhaps, one of the main causes of all these things, the restricted franchise. As to some of the things, however, which my hon. Friend the Member for North West Camberwell said, I must, to some extent, associate myself with my predecessor the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stafford in regard to the relative position of these Colonies and the Colonial Office. The West Indian Colonies have a great deal of autonomy, and they have power to put many of these things right, and I hope that the references in the Report, which are very well put, and which could not be taken as offensive, will have the result of stimulating them in an endeavour to put these things right.

Dr. MORGAN: Will my hon. Friend tell us what he really means by the West Indian Government having autonomy? I put it to him very briefly and courteously that the West Indian islands have not autonomy. There are influential minorities who can veto anything which the elected Members can say or do. It cannot be said that the West Indies have autonomy at all, or anything approaching self-government, or anything of the kind.

Dr. SHIELS: This is not a subject on which we want to spend much time at this moment, but, undoubtedly, what, I think, the right hon. Gentleman meant, and certainly what I mean, is that, compared with other Colonies, the West Indian Colonies have more autonomy. They have more power to do things for themselves, and less control and overlooking by the Colonial Office. I think that that is undoubtedly true. I am not saying that there is no power of influence, but I say that if you had an initiative in the West Indian Colonies to do all these things, or any of them, it would be possible to get them done. The important point I want to make is, that if
the West Indian Colonies, in trying to improve their economic condition, would realise at the same time that low wages and bad working conditions are not really economic but are wasteful and bad business, and that improvement in all these things, especially in regard to some of the things to which the hon. Member called attention, would naturally bring happier economic conditions. I think it is true, and it is one of the things which make one optimistic, that where conditions are more humane, the conditions are most economic. When you have removed low wages and all these other things, you have, at the same time, done an act of true economy. While we have not been able to do all that we would like to do in this crisis to help the West Indies, we hope, as stated in the White Paper, that they will increasingly avail themselves of the opportunities which the Empire Marketing Board and the Colonial Development Fund afford from the British Exchequer to give them a real help.
I am prepared to admit the claim which the right hon. Member for Stafford made on behalf of the late Government that they were the authors of the Empire Marketing Board. They must, at least, give us credit for the Colonial Development Fund. We are coming on very fast in that connection. These are interesting facts of which many West Indian people are not aware. The right hon. Member for Stafford spoke about the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture. Although that is an Imperial college and is intended to serve the whole Empire, it has special associations with the West Indies, and special claims and responsibilities in connection with the West Indies. In aid of the maintenance and development of that Imperial college, the Empire Marketing Board have given £21,000 of capital and £55,000 spread over a period of four years. They have also given to the college for research in the production of a variety of banana immune from Panama disease, over £5,000 of capital and £3,806 per annum for five years. To British Guiana they have given £200 per annum for five years in connection with plant investigation, and they have also met the cost of an expert to go to British Guiana and to advise them on rice production, a very important matter in connection with the alternative industries which have been mentioned to-night.
Money has also been given to the Jamaica Producers' Association for the co-operative marketing of bananas, citrous fruits, etc. to the extent of £1,200 per annum for three years. They have also given £1,900 spread over three years in Jamaica for the development of the silk industry. The Board have also met the expenses of a visit to Jamaica and other parts of the West Indies of a citrous expert from South Africa, and there has also been a visit by an expert from Cambridge, at the expense of the Board, for the purpose of investigating the inheritance of milk yield. For promoting the marketing of St. Vincent arrow-root in the United Kingdom, a grant has been made of £250 per annum for two years. In regard to the whole of the West Indies, there have been various visits paid by biological and entomological experts in order to assist them in various branches of agricultural production. The total amounts provided by the Empire Marketing Board for West Indian scheme, such as those which I have described, for the full period involve a sum of £115,394. I think it will be seen that there has been very considerable and very important expenditure from British funds. In regard to publicity, full opportunity is given for the advertising of West Indian produce. Opportunity is taken to give free space at exhibitions, to give free lectures on West Indian production and in every way as far as possible to assist in making known the products of the West Indies. It is interesting to note, also, that Mauritius has obtained from the Empire Marketing Board a grant of £2,000 for five years for sugar research, which makes a very definite connection with the problem we have been discussing to-night.
For such purposes as workmen's houses, water supply, and medical services in the West Indies, the Government, on the recommendation of the Colonial Development Committee, have already undertaken to provide financial assistance to various development schemes to a total amount of £82,000, of which three-quarters represents grants of capital and the remainder loans, free of interest, for five or 10 years. Of this amount £60,000 has been allocated to Colonies in which sugar is extensively cultivated. The Government will be glad to receive suitable applications for either of these
funds in the hope that something will be done to assist in the development and prosperity of the Colonies. It will be evident from all I have said, and from our general policy, that we wish to help, and that we are helping, the development of alternative industries, which is one of the most important remedies we can pursue. In the islands where they have alternate forms of work the stress is not nearly so severe. We must hope for an improvement in the market price of sugar, and for such improvements in the cost of production as are possible without low wages. That is all I can contribute to the discussion. We must await now the Budget, which will be here before long, for the next chapter.

Major ELLIOT: No one will have listened to the speech of the Under-Secretary of State without the deepest sympathy. Never has this House heard a worthy man struggling with adversity more vigorously and more unsuccessfully. We know very well that the Under-Secretary is the whipping boy of the Treasury. He has been sent here to be flogged for the benefit of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that these uncertainties are inseparable from Preference, and he is going to take good care that if uncertainty does not exist, he will make sure that it begins to exist very shortly. It is the Chancellor of the Exchequer who has produced this uncertainty. It is the Chancellor of the Exchequer who has suppressed this Report, and he is responsible far the condition in which the West Indian Islands remain to-day. All that the Under-Secretary can say is that he has told us all that he can do and that we have now to await humbly until the Chancellor of the Exchequer comes down to the House and opens his Budget shortly before Good Friday. In the lame and impotent statement he has been able to give the House, all that we are told for the benefit of the West Indies is that a day will come when the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be good enough to open his Budget speech.
Is this the defence which is to be brought forward to the House of Commons on the Consolidated Fund Bill, when we are about to vote millions of money away under the trusteeship of the Chancellor of the Exchequer? Where is the Chancellor of the Exchequer? We
know where he is. He is away making sure that the state of uncertainty which he has produced is continued. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has produced a situation in which the Under-Secretary for State has no defence at all to offer the House, save this, that these are good Reports; Reports paid for entirely by the unhappy islands which the Chancellor of the Exchequer still continues to hold upon the rack. The hon. Gentleman tells us that the Report is a mine of information. A mine of information indeed! It indicates how bankruptcy and disaster are approaching with rapid steps our oldest Colonies, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer instructs the hon. Gentleman to say: "It is a very good Report. It tells us that disaster is coming. Just wait and you will see the disaster coming." [Laughter.] That is a very fine proposal and no doubt amusing to hon. Members opposite, but to the oldest British Colonies it is not nearly so funny, as it appears to be to them. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has instructed the hon. Gentleman to say that he hats given considerable sums already, and that the Report brings forward cases where improvements in the conditions of the workers could be made. The hon. Gentleman has quite rightly pointed to the fact that improvements in the conditions of the workers should be made, but has he quoted from the other parts of the Report? Let me call his attention to paragraph 61:
If the cultivation and manufacture of sugar were suddenly to be killed by the withdrawal of the preference protection … such progress as has been attained would be largely lost and the social conditions of the labouring population, in so far as they are dependent on the sugar industry, would infallibly be deteriorated.
Then paragraph 63 states:
We are confident that His Majesty's Government would not allow such a development while it lies in their power to prevent it.
They reckoned without their host. They reckoned without the Chancellor of the Exchequer. No doubt, the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies would not allow this deterioration in the conditions of the labouring population, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer, wrapping himself in his Cobdenite mantle, says: "This disaster is inseparable from preferences and I am going to make sure,
even at the cost of the deterioration of the conditions of the labouring population of the West Indian islands, that the gospel according to St. Cobden, shall be fulfilled." The right hon. Gentleman might have read the Debates in this House, nearly 100 years ago, when the conditions in the sugar islands were under review and when the conditions of the labouring population of those islands were under review. The Tory party of that day pressed upon the Whig and Radical Government which had assumed power, with the support of certain renegade Conservatives, the condition of these islands. Disraeli and the Conservative Members pressed on the Government of the day the condition of the sugar islands, and the very gospellers and the apostles of Free Trade agreed that a preference ought to be given and that there ought to be Protection for West Indian sugar against sugar coming from countries with inferior labour conditions. That protection was in fact given at a time when the gospel of Free Trade and Cobdenism was being preached with full fervour from every platform in the country, and that concession was made for the specific purpose of maintaining the improved labour conditions which had been given to the West Indies by the freeing of the slaves.
It is not true, as the hon. Gentleman has said, that the policy of the West Indies has always been a low wages policy. The policy of the West Indies has always been one of free labour as against slave labour, and is still a policy of high wage conditions against the low wage conditions in other sugar-growing areas of the world. That case was made and defended and established in a House, at least as much attached to Free Trade principles as the present House—a House which contained gospellers of Free Trade, a great deal more powerful and effective than the present defenders of that faith on the Front Bench opposite. The maintenance stabilisation and extension of the principle of Colonial Preference, for the purpose of maintaining wage rates in our ancient British Colonies—that concession which was given by the Free Trade gospellers of 100 years ago, surely ought to be maintained to-day.
For all we know, apart from the arguments and the abuse which the Chancellor of the Exchequer hurls across the Table, he may be going to maintain that
preference; he may even be going to increase it. He does not deign either to inform the House, or to come down to the House when these matters are under discussion. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is busy; he has greater things to think about; he has to confer with his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade upon the recent proposal for the stabilisation, not the reduction, of tariffs. The recommendation made by the Commission was to eliminate the disturbing factors of high tariffs and subsidies. The President of the Board of Trade has gone to Geneva to stabilise them. That is his real achievement. He has eliminated nothing, and reduced nothing. All that he has succeeded in doing is to nail the banner of high tariffs to the mast for other people, and the hon. Member has the effrontery to come to the House and suggest that in doing that the Government are taking steps to eliminate the disturbing factors of high tariffs.

Dr. SHIELS: He has taken the first step.

Major ELLIOT: The hon. Member takes a childlike and simple view of world politics for which, as a Scot, I blush. There must be something about the air of Edinburgh which produces this childlike simplicity. His right hon. Friend and colleague the President of the Board of Trade also apparently shares this childlike belief. He says that he agrees that the tariff banner has been nailed to the top of the mast by the action of his right hon. Friend, but that that is the first step. The next step is to lower the flag. It is nailed up there so that we can all see it, and then his right hon. Friend is going to see that it is brought down. Does he really think that that highly Protectionist body, the League of Nations, is going to reduce these tariffs on account of the beautiful eyes of the President of the Board of Trade. The arguments which were brought forward by the hon. Member brought no conviction to himself, and how could they bring any conviction to the rest of the House? He admitted that they held this report up, and the only argument for holding it up was, he says, that it enabled the Government to publish their policy. Then he went on to say that the policy had been greeted
with whole-hearted condemnation and derision in every part of the British Empire. That was a grand success to secure by the suppression for two months of a report for which other people had paid, and to which other people were looking for an improvement in their conditions.
The Report recommends certain very definite steps, but the most definite that it recommends is the maintenance and increase of the British preference. Can the hon. Member tell us whether that preference is to be maintained and increased? It is surely a simple question. It is the most immediate recommendation of the Commission, and it is a recommendation which can be carried into effect immediately. It is not a recommendation, like the sugar purchasing agency, requiring the setting up of elaborate machinery. The difficulties are not great. It could be done by a stroke of the pen. The uncertainty which exists only exists in regard to the policy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He could remove it by a single sentence, and stabilise for ten years what was granted under previous Governments. It certainly would be possible for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that he had some regard for continuity in foreign policy and in Imperial policy, and that he would extend that preference for the ten-year period which was granted by his predecessor in office.
Uncertainty can be created at any time by saying "We will tear up and reverse the action of our predecessors." If the Chancellor of the Exchequer bases his argument against Colonial preferences on the ground that whenever there is a Socialist Government in power those preferences will be in danger of being swept away, he is giving the country a very good hint how to maintain those preferences, and that is to make sure that hon. Members of the Socialist persuasion do not occupy the Government Benches. [Interruption.] Hon. Members, happy—full-fed—well paid, can laugh at the unfortunate condition of the people of the West Indies.

Mr. DUNCAN: We are laughing at you.

Major ELLIOT: They do not care about the condition of this industry. They do not care about the conditions of labour. They do not care about the market for our manufactured goods which the West Indies provides.

Mr. DUNCAN: Tell us another!

Major ELLIOT: Producers in the United Kingdom are rapidly realising that unless the consuming power of other portions of the Empire is maintained it is useless for production to be increased by rationalisation or any other step taken within these islands. We must look to our markets as well as to our productive areas, and inside the British Empire we have the greatest single market for the manufactured goods of these islands. Hon. and right hon. Members above the Gangway fully realise the importance of these facts, but hon. Members below the Gangway are perfectly willing to worship the Treasury, to worship the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to worship the banks! The policy brought forward by the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies is this: "We are offering facilities to the banks. They will save the colonies. Let us go to the banks! Let us give the banks advances! Let us trust the banks! "We have heard this story from hon. Members before, but it is an astonishing thing to find the banks—this super-capitalist organisation—are all that is to be aided and assisted; and for a policy of that kind the Chancellor of the Exchequer can find wholehearted support from hon. Members below the Gangway. Let it be so! They agree that disaster is coming upon the islands. They agree that they are not going to do anything practical to avert that disaster, not even going to state their policy. They are not even going to demand the presence of the responsible Minister before the House of Commons. Be it so! It is one more count in the long indictment which not merely these islands, but the Empire, has and will have against the present Government. Hon. Members below the Gangway—

Mr. BUCHANAN: Separate the two.

Major ELLIOT: Yes, I will separate the two. The hon. Members on the front benches below the Gangway differ from the supporters of the Government on the back benches, who are not deceived by Cobdenite delusions and are perfectly well aware that the Treasury, which has sunk more than one Government, is in the act of sinking this Government. Those hon. Members on the Front Bench below the Gangway find the state of the West Indies a matter for laughing just now, but they will find it a matter
for regret before these Debates are over and this Parliament is ended.

Question, "That the Bill be now read the Third time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Orders of the Day — DAIRY CATTLE (SHOWS).

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[sir. T. Kennedy.]

Brigadier-General CLIFTON BROWN: I understood the Minister for Health would be here, or I would not have worried the House on the Motion for the Adjournment. I wrote him a letter today saying that, in view of his sympathetic attitude towards the deputation two days ago, and his answers given in the House, promising to consult the Royal and other societies before he puts this Tuberculosis Order into force, I did not want to worry him with the smaller matter of his attitude to the British Dairy Farmers' Association on this Order. But he wrote to me a letter in which he thanks me for my courteous letter, but hopes I shall be willing to-night to say that I find on inquiries that I was under a misapprehension in imputing inaccuracy to his Department. I am sorry to say I cannot do that, and I will give the reason. The British Dairy Farmers' Association wrote to me that they were pleased to learn I had given notice to raise the question of the Order of the Ministry of Health at the first available opportunity so that the views of the Association might be made perfectly Clear.
I must refer to the answer of the Minister of Agriculture which first of all raised this misunderstanding. I wrote to him that I was going to raise this question this evening, and that this question would come into it. In my original question I asked him whether the Royal Society had been consulted, and his reply was that the answer was in the negative. That meant that they had not been consulted, but he said that the Minister of Health had consulted the Certified and Grade A Tuberculin Tested Milk Producers' Association and also the British Dairy Farmers' Association. What happened was that the secretary of the
British Dairy Farmers' Association wrote to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Sir D. Newton) an indignant letter to say that that Association had not been consulted nor were they in agreement upon it. I then asked the Minister of Health whether the British Dairy Farmers' Association had been consulted, and, if so, what was their opinion? I really do not see much use in going on if the Minister of Health is not here to answer me.

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence): He is coming now.

Brigadier-General BROWN: Now that the Minister is here, I repeat that the Minister of Agriculture informed me that he had not consulted the Royal Society but that the Certified and Grade A Tuberculin Tested Milk Producers' Association and the British Dairy Farmers' Association had been consulted. The Association wrote saying that they had neither been consulted nor were they responsible for the Order. Some of their members wrote to them complaining that they had agreed to the Minister's Order and they wrote a very indignant answer. On that, I asked the right hon. Gentleman the question whether he had consulted the British Dairy Farmers Association, and, if so, what was their opinion? He answered that he had consulted them, and he gave an opinion, which is hardly the opinion which they had already given him, because he had their letter by that time. They expressed the opinion that the Order was precipitate, that it severely penalised those who had embraced the movement for the production of purer milk, that it was an iniquitous reflection upon all animals outside tuberculin-tested herds, that it entirely dismissed the existence of fat stock, and placed an irritating and unnecessary impediment in the path of show-promoting agricultural societies. The statement that he made saying that he had consulted them was, as I explained at the time, and I am sure still, a misapprehension. It is quite true that the correspondence he was kind enough to send me, about an Order which began in November, 1928, had three points, as he puts in his own statement of the 20th March, which I accept. He said
My department wrote to this Association on 19th November, 1928, saying that it had been brought to their notice that am-
mals from licensed herds were exhibited at the Islington Dairy Show and that the condition as to separation from other cattle was not complied with."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th March, 1930; col. 2097, Vol. 236.]
That is segregation at the show. That was their point, that they had not been consulted on the Order, but they had discussed this and had had a meeting with the officials on the 15th September. The Minister says that suggestions were discussed, but not adopted, and that the association did not feel themselves able to comply with the Minister's requirements, but that is in regard to segregation of the cattle at their show, but nothing to do with my question about issuing the Order. The point was whether they had been consulted about the issue of that Order. They fully accept the interview and the consultation on the segregation of the animals. I do not think the Minister of Health's officials really know the difference between the segregation of animals at a show and isolation altogether, which the Order brings into force, which are two entirely different matters. He said to-day in his answer that many of those societies were willing to meet him over the segregation of animals at their show, but the same societies object to the order of isolation of tuberculin-tested animals altogether from the show. They were never consulted on the Order, and I think we ought to have been told the truth and the whole truth.
11.0 a.m.
There might have been a misunderstanding, but after all the Minister knows very well that he and his officials had an interview with the other two societies on the 15th January, but the British Dairy Farmers' Association were not there, and he knows that at that meeting this Order was discussed and, I suppose, settled. He is justified in saying the societies were consulted, but is he justified in saying that the British Dairy Farmers' Association were consulted on the Order, when they were not even at that meeting, but were only consulted on the 15th September about the other matter? I will read out the Order, which is as follows:—
The Ministry has, however, now been informed that at most shows it is impracticable to take the precautions necessary to safeguard tested animals from infection by untested animals, and after consulting the Certified and Grade A (Tuberculin Tested) Milk Producers' Association he has decided that he cannot in future consent to the temporary withdrawal of animals from licensed
herds for the purpose of sending them to a show unless the show is restricted to tuberculin-tested cattle.
Why were not the British Dairy Farmers' Association mentioned in the Order? Because they were not at that meeting. I cannot help thinking that there is an honest difference and misunderstanding. In the first answer which he gave to my hon. Friend the member for South Norfolk (Mr. Christie) on 27th February as to why he issued the Order he did not mention the British Dairy Farmers' Association, but in his second and third answers he did. In the Order he did not mention that association. One of these answers must be inaccurate, and that is the reason why I have raised this question. In the "Farmers and Stock Breeders Gazette" there is a letter giving the Minister's statement. There is a big headline to the article:
British Dairy Farmers' Association justified. Minister makes an explanation to the House.
No comment is made on the statement which appears to justify the British Dairy Farmers' Association. This association was not consulted in regard to the Order in any kind of way.

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Mr. Arthur Greenwood): I have not the slightest desire to discuss the merits of this question with regard to tubercular infected cattle. I propose to address myself to the question which was put to me on 13th March last, following an earlier question put to the Minister of Agriculture, and to the statement which the hon. and gallant Member made a week ago. The hon. and gallant Member has talked about honest misunderstandings quite a number of times, but so far as I can see he has not understood the question which he put down on the 13th March, which was as follows:
Brigadier-General Clifton Brown asked the Minister of Health whether he consulted the British Dairy Farmers' Association before issuing the circular which requires certified and grade A (TT) herds to be completely isolated from all other cattle; and what was their opinion?
My reply was:
Yes, Sir. The matter was discussed with representatives of the Association, who stated that it was not practicable at their show, to make the arrangements hitherto
required by my Department as essential for the separation of tested and untested animals.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman thought fit, in a supplementary question, to make this statement:
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the secretary of this association—I have his letter in my hand—denies that the Minister consulted them at all, and says that their opinion is absolutely contrary to what the right hon. Gentleman has just said; and will the right hon. Gentleman take more care in his answers to give the truth.
Subsequently the hon. and gallant Gentleman went on to say:
May I ask if this may be investigated by the Minister? If he finds that I am wrong, I will willingly apologise. But it was not. A false answer!"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th March, 1930; cols. 1489–90, Vol. 236.]
I submit that that was a personal insult to myself and to my Department. [Interruption.] The hon. and gallant Member has said many times that it was an honest misunderstanding, but one does not say that an answer is a false answer unless—

Brigadier-General BROWN: I do not want to have trouble with the OFFICIAL REPORT, but there was a great deal of interruption. I quite agree that it reads "a false answer," but I said that if it was not a false answer I would apologise. They did not, however, get the whole thing.

Mr. GREENWOOD: In answer to a question which was put to me, the facts were stated, and then I expected that the hon. and gallant Member would have made his apology, instead of which he rose in his place and said that he would raise the matter on the Adjournment. I will not say what has transpired since, but I am here to answer his challenge, and I say that his statement was an unwarranted statement, and that the facts as stated by me were perfectly true. I was asked whether the British Dairy Farmers' Association—not, the only association, and indeed, on this matter, not the most important association—had been consulted before the issue of the circular. Now, to-night, the hon. and gallant Member asks why were they not consulted on the issue of the circular? If the hon. and gallant Member cannot use his native language in a way that enables him to express his opinion, I am very sorry, but I must answer the ques-
tions that are put to me. The answer which I gave was true in the letter and in the spirit, and the hon. and gallant Member has never disputed it.

Brigadier-General BROWN: I raised this question to put the British Dairy Farmers' case before the House, and the answers have not accurately described their attitude in this matter.

Mr. GREENWOOD: But the hon. and gallant Member is misunderstanding the point. He asked me a question in the House as to whether, before the issue of a certain Order, I had consulted the association in which he is interested, and I said that I had. and he said that I had made a false answer. Now he is quibbling, as he has in correspondence with me, on the Floor of the House at this moment. I explained a week ago, in an answer to a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Broad) the precise history of this matter. The history of the matter is this. I am not going into the merits of the case, but the point is that there is an Order with regard to the way in which tuberculin-tested herds have to be treated at agricultural shows. The fact is, and it is beyond dispute, that the conditions prescribed by the Order were not being fulfilled. That was brought to the notice of the British Dairy Farmers' Association. They replied in a letter last September. They were brought into conference, and the secretary, who denies having been consulted, was present, and he cannot deny it.

Captain RONALD HENDERSON: Were the British Dairy Farmers' Association consulted with reference to the issue of this Order?

Mr. GREENWOOD: I am dealing with the question which was put to me on the 13th March, where the honour of my Department was impugned, and when the hon. and gallant Gentleman—[Interruption.] It seems to him to be something irrelevant, but the point is this. I will read the question again:
Whether he consulted the British Dairy Farmers' Association before issuing the circular which requires certified and grade A (T T) herds to be completely isolated from all other cattle.
My answer was "Yes," arid that cannot be denied by any Member of the British Dairy Farmers' Association, because they
not only wrote, but they came to the Ministry and discussed this very question in all its aspects last September. One of the persons who was a member of that deputation was the secretary of the association. Yet the hon. and gallant Gentleman denies that they were ever consulted at all. In view of that fact and in view of the question that was put to me, I say that I ought to have received, a fortnight ago, an apology from the hon. and gallant Gentleman. I am not in the least concerned about what the hon. and gallant Gentleman thinks about my political views, or what he says about them, but I think it is unfair of a Member of this House to ask a question and to challenge the veracity of the Minister who answers and the integrity of the Department for which that Minister is responsible. All that he has done since 13th March has been to snake the situation worse from his point of view. I have given, as he knows, every opportunity for making what I think is the response that he ought to have made. He has refused to do it.

Brigadier-General BROWN: I made the response that I thought I ought to make and not what the right hon. Gentleman thinks I ought to have made.

Mr. GREENWOOD: The hon. and gallant Member said this was due to an "honest misunderstanding." I do not accept that at all. I gave a perfectly frank answer to the question that he asked, and he said that if he was wrong he would apologise. I have given him a fortnight in which to do it and he has declined to do it.

Brigadier-General BROWN: Yes.

Mr. GREENWOOD: That is quite apart from the merits of the case, which I refuse to discuss to-night because it is not at issue. I should have thought that the hon. and gallant Member in the interests of the cause he is trying to serve would at least realise that a Department like mine would not be guilty of falling into the mistake of what he has called "an honest misapprehension." We are as much concerned with the problem of a pure milk supply as he is. The Department will be there long after he and I have departed from public life. We are as much concerned as he is or even as the British Dairy Farmers' Association—indeed, I would say that as the Ministry
of Health we are even more concerned with the problem of a pure milk supply than the British Dairy Farmers' Association—for it is concerned with quite other interests than those of public health. The imputation which has been made by the hon. and gallant Gentleman is that my Department is so stupid that it cannot read plain English, that it is guilty of "honest misunderstandings" about perfectly plain facts when, as a matter of fact, there is no body of civil servants more concerned with the problem that the hon. and gallant Gentleman has at heart than the officers of the Ministry of Health. I shall leave the matter where it is, and I shall not lose by it. But I give the hon. and gallant Gentleman an opportunity of withdrawing the statement that he made which reflected on the honour of my Department. I leave myself out of it personally, though I take responsibility for the Department. I give the hon. and gallant Gentleman an opportunity of withdrawing the imputation which he has made against the Department. If he does not choose to do that, I will leave the matter where it is and leave it with him and his conscience.

Brigadier-General BROWN: In my statement to the House, I withdrew all charges of bad faith against the Minister
or the Minister's Department, and I should like to say at once that I never intended to impute bad faith at the time, when I thought his answer was incorrect. I said that my question was misunderstood. While accepting the statement that the Minister's answer was given in good faith, I said that I would raise the question at the first opportunity, so that the position of the Dairy Farmers' Association might be made perfectly clear. I have withdrawn all charges of bad faith already, and I have nothing to add.

Mr. GREENWOOD: The hon. and gallant Gentleman still does not seem to understand his native language. He made two statements which were not statements about misunderstanding or good faith. One said this:
Will the right hon. Gentleman take more care in his answers to give the truth.
That has nothing to do will good faith. Later he said I had given a false answer. Those two statements still remain. What he says about my good faith does not matter. The charges he has made still remain. They remain on his conscience and not on mine.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at a quarter after Eleven o'Clock.